Melt the Mistletoe
by Sasukeluva 4eva
Summary: Deck the halls with cheer and jest, and join us in love's perpetual fest. Post-War. Canon. 15: A Christmas Mission (Part III).
1. Wish

**Author's Note:**_ I figure that I should hop on the ship bandwagon, so what better place to start than with a Christmas Anthology? I've got the family feels, after all._

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><p><strong>Rating:<strong> T (for the meantime)

**Categories:** Family, Romance

**Characters:** Uchiha Sasuke x Uchiha Sakura (eventual Uchiha Sarada)

_**Summary:** Deck the halls with cheer and jest, and join us in love's perpetual fest._

**Disclaimer: This applies to all future chapters. IDNON, BIDHTOS! That is all.**

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><p><strong>S<strong>_a_s**u**ke**l**_u_va **4**_e_v**a** _p_r**e**se**n**_t_s**;**

_**Melt the Mistletoe**_

A Christmas Anthology

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><p><strong>One:<strong> Wish

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_**Characters: Team 7**_

_**Categories: Hurt/Comfort, Romance**_

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><p>It had been five hundred and forty-seven days since Sakura had bid Sasuke adieu. Eighteen months, eighty-four weeks, thirteen thousand, one hundred and twenty-eight hours, seven hundred and eighty-seven thousand, six hundred and eighty minutes had passed without his company. Not that she was counting, not at all! She had other priorities to tend to; duties at the hospital to perform, training both her mind and her body to near-perfect resilience, and fortifying herself within her intellectual endeavours.<p>

So much to do, so little time to think about time. Which passed much too slowly for her liking. Never had a week felt like an eternity until she had become aware that Sasuke was potentially homeward bound, and as much as she tried to deny it, her anticipation was steadily mounting.

Amidst the ever teeming crowds of civilians and shinobi alike, the pink haired medic found herself on her toes, scanning her surroundings with her peripherals for any sign of that familiar and beloved black scruff of hair. Searching almost desperately for those dark, expressive eyes that retained the intensity of his youth even now, as they had succumbed to the world weariness that utmost devastation and despair had instilled within him.

She would inflate with excitement when she thought that she had caught a glimpse of him, but when she nudged her way through the bustling bystanders peddling their wares or just meandering amidst the fray, her face would visibly deflate when she realised that she had latched onto an unseemly stranger. Disappointment filled her tightly constricting chest, but she would bear it with a brave smile every time, and apologise profusely for her mistaken identification.

And just when she thought that her hopes were all unfounded, she would catch the faintest flicker out of the corner of her eye; of a turned back, cloaked in ebony garbs emblazoned with a splatter of red and white, quickly melding seamlessly into nothingness the longer her frantic eyes sought out his own. It had to be a mirage. There was no other explanation for these inexplicable sightings. Her yearning had driven her to the very brink of impatient insanity, and she needed to get a grip before she completely lost herself to disillusionment.

He would come home when he was ready to. It was as simple as that. And when that time finally came, she would be there; hands gripping her shirt with skin stretched tautly over bone and blood and pulse thundering beneath her breast, cheeks flushed with nerves and a bright smile tugging at the corners of her lips at the sight of him on the horizon.

Yes, he would come home soon.

Fervently, for another eight months, Sakura wished upon the shooting stars sparkling throughout the cosmos that he would return to them all. To her.

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><p>It was on a bitter, frigidly cold winter's night that Sakura found herself being shoved to and fro amidst the streets of Konohagakure, packed with pedestrians celebrating the festive season. People everywhere, as far as the eye could see, were lined up outside of shops and market stalls, bargaining with the owners down to the tooth and nail for a more reasonable price that would not be, for it was Christmas, and as the saying goes, first come; first served.<p>

If you leave your shopping to the last minute, then inevitably you must suffer the consequences of your ignorance or lackadaisical attitude.

Fortunately for the pinkette, she had thought ahead, and began her seasonal gifting two months beforehand. Now she could kick back and fully relish in the time leading up to the end of the year. _Unfortunately_, one blonde knucklehead had not been so forthright in his preparation, and was thus the central cause of Sakura being shoved around like a sack of potatoes in the tumultuous embrace of the ocean.

He had called her in sheer panic earlier that day, sweating bullets no doubt over his general thoughtlessness; although characteristic of him, it still seemed unhabitually idiotic for the blonde to have forgotten that the one day of the year where romance was one hundred percent _expected_ was fast approaching.

He had particular reason for his stress, however. Having been in a fruitful and fast developing relationship with the ever so lovely Hyuuga heiress for the past year and a half, it was naturally a given that he was to present her with something especially extravagant and meaningful. To her great astonishment, they were the very words that Naruto had not so eloquently screamed into the headset of his phone, along with a colourful string of expletives that would have made any normal person's ears bleed had they been on the receiving end of his frenzy.

''She deserves the very best, Sakura-chan, but I just don't know what I should get her! I don't even know where to begin, 'tebayo!'' He spewed the words out in one hasty exhalation, and Sakura was sure that he was turning purple from the lack of oxygen getting to his brain between his ranting and hyperventilating. ''So I thought, well, maybe you'd, y'know, help an old buddy out? You're a girl and stuff, so you know what kind of thing girl's like to be given on days like this right?''

She rolled her eyes, leaning back against the counter in her apartment's small, but functional kitchenette, cradling the phone between her shoulder and neck as she rested her palms on the smooth marble surface of the bench. He could be so smart sometimes, but this was one of the more frequent episodes he displayed when not an ounce of thought or common sense inhabited his mind.

''You do realise that the gift itself doesn't need to be expensive or even tangible, right? I mean, this is Hinata we're talking about here. She embodies the meaning of relatively inexpensive and honest to a fault; she wouldn't want you to go beyond your means, because she loves you for you, and doesn't want anything more than your love in turn. Why is that so hard for you to see, you jackass?'' Sakura exclaimed with an exasperated sigh, reaching up to curl the phone's cord around her fidgety fingers.

This was meant to be her one day off until Christmas Eve, and she intended on enjoying it in the peace of her own home. Or she had, until Naruto ripped the floor out from beneath her feet with his next words. ''Sakura-chan, I'm being completely serious here! I-I need to do this, before I lose my nerve. I don't want to propose to Hinata-chan when the tone hasn't been set right from the start!''

Eyes wide, Sakura nearly droopped the phone from the intensity of her surprise. _Propose? Marriage? Naruto? What?_ Incoherent thoughts tumbled one after another through Sakura's mind, but she settled on one, which she voiced with no amount of trepidation in her voice, which trembled with emotion. ''That would have to be the best early birthday present you could ever give her, Naruto. Where did an idiot like you come up with that idea?''

''I'm not some insensitive twat, Sakura-chan! Of course I came up with it alone! I mean, I want impact, and I want it to mean something; more than anything else in the world to her. I-I really love her, y'know. I just want her to know how serious I am about her, about us.'' He sounded genuinely insulted by her offhand remark, and Sakura swallowed the guilt that rose within her gut.

''I'm sorry, Naruto. You know I didn't mean it. I just... wow. Never thought you'd be the one wanting to get hitched. And so soon too! Seriously, congratulations.'' Sakura intoned softly, smiling as she turned to rest her elbows and stomach against the bench.

_He's grown so much since our childhood_, she thought with eyes that were becoming increasingly moist with tears. _I couldn't be more proud of him._ She heard Naruto breathe out softly, before shakily responding to her, voice rich with the deep affection he had held for her for so many years.

''Yeah, I know Sakura-chan. Thanks a lot. And yeah, it was kind of unexpected for me too, but the more I thought about it―y'know, the marriage thing―the more I wanted it. Like _really_ wanted it. I've never had a family of my own; the closest thing to it was Team 7. And although you guys will always be hugely important to me, I want Hinata-chan to know that she's my number one. Is that bad?''

''No, of course not!'' Sakura refuted resolutely, her green eyes firm as she stared at the calendar on the wall across from her. _Ten days till Christmas, huh, Sasuke-kun?_

''I completely understand it! You'll always have a family with us, with Kaka-sensei and Sasuke-kun,'' she flinched a little at the mention of his name, and she was sure the gesture carried through her sharp pause immediately after omitting it, as Naruto asked if she was alright. ''I'm fine, don't worry! Anyways, you'll always find family with us, but it's about time you experienced for yourself what it means to have something to call your own. I for one, am glad for it.''

Naruto paused on his end of the line, as if in thought, before he spoke softly into the receiver; as if what he was saying was a secret meant for her ears only.

''Sasuke will be back, Sakura. He came back when Toneri invaded our territory―'' Now it was Naruto's turn to flinch in discomfort. He never liked thinking back on that experience. ''To protect us all in my stead, and he made it very clear that he would definitely return to us soon. Have patience, Sakura-chan. A bastard he may be, but a liar he is not.'' Naruto quipped sagely, his blue eyes practically sparkling through the line between them.

Sakura smiled, a traitorous tear leaking out of the corner of her right eye, which she deftly wiped away. Now was not the time for tears. Naruto was making a life-changing decision, and he needed her to guide him down the right path. If anything, it was what she was best at. Giving him direction helped her with her own, and so she had then made up her mind. ''Dress warmly and meet me at The Bridge, Naruto. We have some engagement shopping to do.''

And so here she was, wading through the crowd with Naruto's hand clasped firmly in hers. It was the only surefire way of staying together and not getting sucked away into the endless void of milling masses that they were currently submerged in. His hand, big, warm and covered in callouses from hours upon hours of training, was slickened with a sheen of anxious sweat, and he continued to readjust his grip on her clasped fingers so as to ensure that their bond would endure.

Their eyes acting as a synchronised unit, they searched the surrounding area until Sakura spotted a small jeweller, out of the way enough that few people were seen loitering around it. Perfect. Sharing a grin, the two pushed their way through the flailing limbs and solid bodies, barrelling their way into the doorway of the store. Sakura steeled herself, before pushing Naruto forward, the door opening with the slightest creak of protest.

The sound of bells chiming alerted them to the pair that had been affixed to the top of the door-frame. Nostalgia washed through them as they thought back to a quiet spring day eight years passed, where three eager genin learned the essence of being a ninja. Teamwork. Compassion. Comradery. Both jonin smiled in reverence of the childhood keepsake, before their attentions were drawn to the frail old man tottering his way over to them, a warm, hospitable smile on his face.

''Welcome! What can I do you for, Uzumaki-san, Haruno-san?'' He asked, voice smooth and strong despite his decrepit exterior. They had not expected such a powerful voice from such a timid looking elder, but appearances could never be taken at face value in the shinobi world, and this was of no exception. From the scars on his hands and face, it was easy to see that he once shared the same battlefield that they did, and no doubt would he be able to hold his own even now. His presence said everything.

Naruto swallowed, obviously nervous, allowing a quick glance in Sakura's direction. She merely smiled encouragingly, placing a comforting hand on his bicep before he vocalised his request. ''I'm here... to purchase a gift for my girlfriend. Y'know, the permanent kind?'' The old man's eyes, sharp as knives, gleamed in the soft light of his shop, a deep well of wisdom lurking in their depths as he responded just as evasively. ''There are many permanent means of showing affection, Uzumaki-san. Bracelets, earrings, necklaces. But what I sense here is that of the ring variety. Am I to assume of the casual kind, or of the marriage kind?''

''T-The marriage kind.'' Naruto stuttered out, voice eerily quiet as he met the old man's gaze with his own, without faltering. Something in the blonde's expression must have caught the man's attention, for he looked oddly impressed as he smiled gently at him, as if to break the ice. ''Well now, I have quite the collection of pretty rings that I could show you, but I suppose that you have something already in mind?'' At Naruto's stunned expression, he laughed, a booming baritone that immediately dispersed the remaining tension from their bodies.

''I have been in this business for many years now, lad. I know the nuances, know them well. You have put some thought into this, unlike a lot of other things in your young life.'' Sakura laughed at the bewildered look on the blonde's face. His antics from their youth had become legendary, after all, and that notoriety had obviously not simmered down since then.

''Old minds never forget.'' Was all the man said in that respect, before he led Naruto and Sakura out to the back of his shop, in order to settle the design schematics that he was looking for. Sakura watched quietly from her spot on the couch as they discussed the important tidbits, a soft smile lingering on her face long after the night folded into dawn.

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><p>Sakura blew on her hands, fluffy white clouds rising around her cupped palms as she rubbed them into biting futility. It was the Eve of the big day, and Sakura had a lot of preparations to make. The Rookie Nine (tears swum in her eyes as she recalled with a sickening lurch of her stomach that there were only eight of them now) were gathering at the Hokage's Mansion for the festivities, to be celebrated with their sensei and fellow shinobi, and she was in charge of the decorations.<p>

After a long shift at the hospital, more work was hardly appealing to her, mind and body frazzled with exhaustion, but she swallowed her protests at the thought of seeing her sensei and shishou. It had been three months since Kakashi-sensei had had the time to entertain her requests for company (being the Rokudaime was occupying every ounce of freedom he had once had), and she hadn't seen her shishou in just as long; after Kakashi had taken the mantle of Kage off of her shoulders, she had hightailed it out of the village for some much needed ''R&R,'' cackling over the fact that she would never have to do paperwork again.

Leaving her poor sensei behind in the wake of her laziness. But no one was more capable than Kakashi-sensei; he picked up on her slack, and had the office running more efficiently than ever, at the cost of even his time to visit the graves of his loved ones. The worn, tattered orange book was nowhere in sight, tucked away for a rainy day of leisure that was beyond sight. His headband was placed quietly in the top draw of his desk, should he ever need to don it again for battle; gleaming despite the darkness it lived in.

When he was particularly stressed, he would take it out and polish it, staring into every scratch and imperfection that marred the smooth metal surface searchingly, as if he were reliving every battle and memory that had been etched into it. There was a fond sadness in his gaze that Sakura had to avoid meeting at such times, for she feared that the despair that he felt looking into those cracks of broken memories and loss would break down her carefully placed wall of composure.

Weakness was not what he needed. Her strength helped pull his wits about, and so she would never meet his eyes again when there were tears to be spilt, for it was no longer his responsibility to wipe them away. She needed to be strong, for both of their sakes. Even so, it was hard to reel in the squeal of excitement as she passed through the threshold of his office and met his warm onyx irises. He moved from his place by the window and strode toward her, placing an affectionate hand upon her head as he smiled knowingly through his mask at her, eyes crinkling at the edges as he greeted her in his soft tones.

''Lost on the path of life, Sakura? I'm glad that it happened to converge with me today, even if you are late.'' There was a teasing note lilting behind the tenor of his voice, and it did not go amiss, for Sakura smacked him playfully on his side before wrapping her arms around his waist.

''I had to save a stray ramen-loving mutt from pre-proposal jitters after I left the hospital, sensei. There was no helping it.'' She exclaimed in amusement, her voice muffled by the thick material of his black woollen sweater.

He chuckled wholeheartedly, her body jostled along with his as he gently pried her away from him, not a trace of embarrassment on his face as he ruffled her cropped hair. It was about shoulder-length now, but because it was so cold, Sakura was reluctant to chop off the only source of warmth her neck had at all times, so she had elected not to do so as of yet.

''Well I am sure that that went down with as much eloquence as a feral cat on fire.'' Kakashi quipped, genuinely exasperated as he led Sakura by the hand to the lounge at the back of his office.

He was informed of Naruto's plans via the horse's mouth himself, barging into his quarters at three in the morning to have a heart to heart with his very grouchy sensei, who had until then not slept for three days. Needless to say, the encounter didn't bode well, but they were both over it. Kakashi was secretly quite pleased about the events, and Sakura knew it all too well. Perhaps he felt it even more so, having been in a position where he no longer had family as well. It was wonderful seeing Naruto being accepted and loved by those around him, even more so when that love promised a family all his own.

''I can't say it was... easy to bring him back to earth,'' Sakura said with a little more acidity than necessary, but her expression softened at the memory of Naruto all worked up over Hinata's reaction. ''But he did eventually calm down enough to eat three bowls at Ichiraku's, so I'd say that's a job well done for yours truly.'' She gloated smugly, before she returned her gaze to Kakashi. He looked thoughtful.

''You really have grown a lot, Sakura. More than you even realise. More than the boys ever could have.'' It was meant to be a simple statement, an observation made out of love and deep affection, but there was a cryptic quality to his words that stopped Sakura in her tracks. What had brought this on?

''Well, I'd say you still have some growth left in you, but you really have come into yourself as of late. You look happier than I've ever seen you. I think that the promise of hope that Sasuke left with you really has done a world of good for your esteem, wouldn't you agree?'' He faced her then, with a knowing glint in his eyes; as if he knew that she had been thinking about him. But of course he knew. He always knew. She smiled, expression full of a sweetness that could only ever be brought about at the mention of her love's name.

''Mm. I don't know about that... But I _am_ happier. Definitely happier. I miss him, of course, and more than anything in the world I wish he would just come home. But I know that he can't. It isn't that simple. He has so much to work through, so much to recover from, and I don't want to impede on his progress. When he comes home, I want it to be at his own pace, because he's ready to be here with us all again. I want him to want to be here, and not return out of some foolish sense of obligation to me, to us.'' Sakura proclaimed with a smile, fire burning in her eyes as Kakashi's crinkled up in response.

His heart warmed at her presence, at her smile. It had been lost for so long amidst tears and despair, and he had coveted its return for so long that his hope had dwindled to near nothingness; until Sasuke put it back on her lips. _Now, she can smile from her heart_, he thought with a swell of pride filling his chest. Now, she can truly be happy. _Can you see it, Sasuke? Can you see her smiling for you?_

The abrupt sound of the door thumping open jerked their attention away from each other. Standing there, piled sky-high with boxes spewing rainbows of twinkling tinsel and Christmas baubles, was Tsunade and Shizune, followed by an army of staffers dressed like elves and looking shamefaced for it.

''Sorry to interrupt the touching reunion, but we have work to do!'' Tsunade exclaimed with a smirk, before turning on her heel and yelling orders at the flustered helpers standing at the wayside. Sakura's heart warmed at the familiar sight, and she linked hands with Kakashi for a brief moment of respite; from the pesky thoughts of time too slow to pass, and of proposals and shared kisses under mistletoe and inky dark eyes that were out of her reach.

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><p>It was just after one in the morning when Sakura retired to her own home, eager to get some much needed sleep for the day ahead. The first Merry Christmas of the year belonged, rightfully, to Kakashi and Tsunade, and in turn Shizune and the rest of the workers who had been summoned to do the Godaime's sadistic will, and they had returned the sentiments with much zest. Well, with as much zest as fatigued shinobi leaders could manage at such an ungodly hour, anyhow.<p>

The pink haired med-nin sauntered slowly down the darkened streets, the hustle and bustle of the final rush hours of Christmas Eve a distant echo that carried her onward. It was an idyllic scene to look upon, serene and a little sad. Lonely, melancholy. Empty. Feeling a little hollow on the inside, Sakura shook her head, little tufts of powdered snow, freshly fallen, sent flying in the air around her.

It did her very little good getting depressed on such a festive day, after all, especially at this time. But the environment, although pristine and blanketed in a thick layer of snowfall, was darkly reminiscent of that abysmal day; the fact that there were stone benches lining the sides of the pathway did not help. Even coated in snow, they were clearly discernible, and her gut rolled over unpleasantly, a feeling akin to vertigo stopping her dead in her tracks.

Closing her eyes, Sakura inhaled unsteadily, her lips numb from the wintry air nipping at them. She was sure her face was flushed with blotchy red stains, for her face was stinging from overexposure to the elements, and the fine hairs all over her body had risen, despite her warm and thickly-laden attire. Steadying herself, she opened her eyes, which were drawn to the half-covered full moon above.

It was cloaked behind the misty clouds that were sending down snowflakes, but the waning silver glow streaked through the gaps, lighting her way home. And behind those clouds, and beyond that shimmering moon, surely, there was a shooting star falling just for her.

And she wished on it harder than she ever had in her life.

_Please. Bring him home someday. Bring him home to me._

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><p>Frost had gathered on the windowpanes when the first rays of daybreak filtered into her room, spreading like wildfire over the glass like a plague of frozen sand. Sakura opened her eyes, bleary and sleepy, peering out at the brightening sky above with a neutral expression. It had felt like no time had passed at all since she had curled up under the thick quilt on her bed and fallen into a disturbed slumber, which only further enhanced her dislike of said time. Even in moments like this it was proving to be detrimental to her health.<p>

Body heavy, Sakura lay there, prone and still as stone, burying her face into her pillows and groaning when she sensed a familiar flare of chakra pressing urgently toward her apartment. Why did he have to disturb her so early in the godforsaken morning? Pretending to be unaware of his presence, she closed her eyes and counted to twenty, hoping that in the process she would miraculously fall asleep and that he would leave her in peace.

Naturally, this was not to be. Naruto had never had any qualms invading her boundaries, after all, and this was of no exception. _Just kill me please_, she moaned in despair, watching the few small grains of respite crumble into dust within her mind, her Inner eloquently hurtling obscenities so colourful that a hardened shinobi operative would blush had they heard them vocalised. She didn't even flinch when her bedroom door was thrown open, and a larger than life blonde dimwit flew in without a care in the world, dressed as an obscenely orange parody of Santa Claus and toting a large napsack to match.

Sakura squeezed her eyes shut, and if possible, sunk deeper into her mattress, pulling the blanket over her head to shield her ears from his impending morning wake-up call.

''WAKE UP SLEEPY HEAD! IT'S KU-RI-SU-MA-SUUUUU!'' Naruto hollered in obvious excitement, bounding over to her bed and flopping onto it like deadweight, his hands probing for her sides before he began tickling her.

At first she was habitually enraged, having been disturbed so rudely from her near interlude with inertia, but his giddy laughter was infectious, and soon he had pulled the doona away from her writhing body as she laughed, deep and gut-busting giggles that washed away her exhaustion and left her feeling surprisingly refreshed. And they lay there for a while, looking into each other's eyes, a deep platonic affection shared in their amused expressions as she reached up and brushed the remnants of snow from his hair. It was cold, wet and mushy to the touch, and she shuddered at the unpleasant bite it packed.

''We really should get up, 'tebayo.'' Naruto stated with a calmness that defied the mischievous gleam in his bright cerulean eyes. Sakura shrugged, content to merely lie there in the residual warmth of her blankets, but when she caught the anxious glimmer that flickered across the blonde's bronzed complexion, she knew he was right.

''Yeah, yeah, I'm getting up now.'' Sakura shook her hand noncommittally, nonplussed by his dubious stare as she stretched her stiff muscles out, exposing some midriff and thigh that even Naruto couldn't help but ogle. She had gradually grown into her figure, and it seemed mother nature was finally being kind to her. Beneath that baggy shirt, her bust had filled out substantially, to the point where, if she had to, she could get away with borrowing one of Hinata's brassieres for support.

But the changes weren't limited to that. The toned muscles of her stomach had sloped outwards, widening her hips and enhancing the lovely shape of her long legs. Even if she was short, she looked deceptively tall in heels because of those limbs of hers, and Naruto drank in the sight of her with as little lust as he could manage.

He may love every inch of Hinata more than anything else in the world, but on the flip side, he had been crazy about Sakura for a long time too, so it was a little harder to not appreciate her blossoming beauty as it began to unfold into its peak. Shaking off his attentions as mere admiration (she felt her pride bolster a little at the thought that even though he was so in love with Hinata, he could still appreciate her feminine charms as well), Sakura headed over to her dresser, pulling out her attire for the day before she turned expectantly to Naruto.

''Leave. It's shower time in the Haruno household, and if I so much as catch a glimpse of your ugly mug taking a peek, I will break every bone in your body and send them to Hinata as the decorations for her Christmas tree, you hear?'' He was gone before she had even finished.

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><p>The day had progressed pleasantly. Having the chance to gather everyone from their youth together in one place was wonderful, and having new friends to share the day with was the icing on the cake. Sakura, noticing Tenten's glum disposition, opted to move their little party to the graveyard, so that they could involve Neji in their festivities as well.<p>

Her chocolate brown eyes, misted over with tears, were deeply grateful, and even though it was cold as high hell, having Neji's presence near was of great comfort to everyone there. He had been a beloved friend and family member, and was sorely missed by them all.

Hinata especially, whose delicate features twisted in sadness as she held Tenten's hand comfortingly, her pale lavender irises returning every so often to gaze forlornly at the name etched into the cold, frostbitten stone. Sakura's heart ached for the both of them, who had loved him so very deeply, in ways that Lee and the rest of their group failed to comprehend.

When the time came to head to the Hokage Mansion for the main festive celebration, their bodies were numbed to the cold, but inside they were warm. Wishing Neji a Merry Christmas was bittersweet, but the soft echo of bells in the distance seemed to be a sign of sentiment reciprocated, and they all left with spirits uplifted.

Tenten had since become more talkative, openly reminiscing on the days spent in the festive season with her quiet, brooding lover. They all listened attentively, sometimes adding onto her stories with footnotes of their own, and Sakura smiled softly as she watched Tenten laugh without restraint. She had taken his death so badly, but had internalised it until after the war had been won. Only then did she allow herself to crumble in her devastation, and it had taken her until then to show signs of healing.

Finally, she could learn to live her life without his loss constantly weighing her down. She could focus on the beautiful memories that she had shared with him, and remember him as she knew him, and that was what they had all been sincerely waiting for. Her heart bled for the loss of such a wonderful and devoted friend and ninja, and even more so for the lover and family that he had left behind.

A part of her felt guilty for not having done anything more to save him. Perhaps if she had tried harder, he would still be among them, smiling quietly as he held onto Tenten's hand and walked alongside them.

But it was an unreasonable sense of guilt, one that came from love and heartache, and not from the crux of his death itself. She could do no more for him than anyone else could have. His death was a tragedy that was unavoidable, and would live in their hearts and minds forever. But living with him inside of them... that was the one way that he could continue to live on, and so they held on with steadfast determination.

After arriving at the Mansion, they were bombarded with glittering tinsel and alcohol embellished by the sparkling fairy lights that danced suggestively against the slivers of exposed flesh and atop the watery surfaces of their beverages. Sakura found herself at the window of Kakashi's large office, peering out into the darkness that had settled in the early afternoon, which hosted the promise of a long night of partying hard. The blanket of lapis lazuli that coated the sky twinkled incandescently, and Sakura longed for a meteor shower.

She had more wishes to waste on the temptress called Time.

Naruto slipped through the crowd, making his way over to her still profile; she watched his form mirrored on the glassy surface, eyes thoughtful as she noticed the rising tension mounting in his features. Looks like the time is just about right.

''How about some liquid courage before you chicken out?'' Sakura intoned with a smirk as he settled alongside her, wringing away the tension in his hands on a defenseless napkin in the process of unwinding from his anxieties.

''Not funny, Sakura-chan.'' He interjected snarkily, the tremor in his voice enough to take away the edge of his retort. ''Look, I'm sorry. It's just... ugh, I dunno. If I fuck this up, I'll never live it down, and if I take even a sip of sake, I know I'll lose my nerve and screw my chances completely.'' Naruto explained softly, his blue eyes jittery as they searched the crowd for the lavender eyed goddess he had come to adore so completely. He found her by the punch bowl, talking with Kiba and Shino as they coddled their sensei's daughter.

He returned his gaze to hers, which was sympathetic and ready for dishing out moral support. He smiled briefly, reaching out to link fingers with hers, before he raised his biggest concern of all. ''What if she says no? Sakura-chan, what'll I do then?''

''Naruto, you are the world's biggest moron if you think that she'll ever, for a minute, turn you down. She spent most of her life chasing your shadow, loving you from a distance, and remaining faithful to those feelings unconditionally was her greatest asset. More than anything, all you have to worry about is whether your proposal will lead to one of her famous fainting spells.'' Amusement was clear in her voice when Naruto's eyes widened comically at the realisation that had not occurred to him sooner.

''Oh shit! Well, I'll be there to catch her, 'tebayo! So even if she does, I'll keep holding onto her until she says yes!'' He exclaimed with conviction, pumping his fist in the air for extra emphasis, a huge grin replacing the sour twist to his lips and spreading onto Sakura's face as well. He was so resilient. No setback would ever get the best of him. He just had to think positively, like he always had, and he would do just fine. Sakura believed that with all of her trembling heart.

''Well, I should probably...'' He trailed off suggestively, and Sakura just shoved him away playfully. Moron. Just as he was about to make his way through the large swell of shinobi, however, Naruto stopped, and turned back to face her. Stunned, Sakura could only wonder why he was coming back to her at this crucial moment. The blonde bent over, hand wrapping over hers as he whispered softly into her ear.

''I know it's kinda late, but I left you a present somewhere special. You'd better hop to it. It's cold outside.'' Was all he said, before he planted a soft kiss to her flushed cheek and melted into the crowd. Sakura watched in mute fascination as he tapped Hinata on the shoulder; watched as her features lit up brightly at the sight of his face; watched as he took her hand and excused them from the party. Her mouth was a pretty pull of bittersweet happiness as she saw Naruto peer over his shoulder at her, his thumb coming up as his expression mirrored her own. And then they were gone, and she was brought back to the reality of his words.

''A present, huh? Wonder what the idiot got for me...?'' _Somewhere special? Where on earth...?_ She rolled her eyes. He was always bad at lying. Perhaps he had forgotten her in his panic to find the perfect ring for Hinata, and was trying to buy time to make it up to her? Well, it didn't really matter to her. There was only one thing she truly wanted, and she was prepared to wait the rest of her life before she received it.

Shirking off her negative impressions, Sakura mingled amidst the crowd, observing in absolute fascination as Ino flirted shamelessly with Sai to gay abandon. Sakura knew that he was sweet on the blonde bombshell, but he was yet to stumble upon that conclusion, so for the time being she was content watching him put the pieces together while Ino made her intentions all too clear. Captain Obvious could take a leaflet from her, that's for sure.

A brush against her shoulder and a familiar scent filled her with warmth as she turned her gaze to Kakashi, who watched the festivities with a bored glint in his dark eyes from his position alongside her. He said nothing, just kept her company, which was more than enough to content her heart, shaking with trepidation on behalf of Naruto. ''He'll be fine.'' Was all the once famous copy-nin said, turning his smiling eyes on her before he brushed her cheek affectionately.

''Don't you have somewhere to be?'' He stated blithely, the cryptic gleam of the previous night inflected in his words. Sakura shook her head, unsure as to what he was insinuating. ''Well you look like you're about to run for the hills. How about you take a walk and get some fresh wintry air for a minute or two? You look about as pleased to be around all these people as I am.'' He added emphatically, a chuckle slipping out from beneath his mask before he sauntered away to a place of quietude. _He's right_, she thought internally. _I really do need a break from this._

Sakura huffed out an impatient sigh as she weaved expertly through the clamouring masses, green eyes plastered on the door upon which Naruto had exited only moments prior. How was he doing? _Hopefully not badly enough to forever traumatise the poor girl_, Sakura mused. No, she was confident in Naruto's ability to convey his feelings to the young Hyuuga woman. He could do this. Kakashi had said so himself, so it had to be true. For both of their sakes.

Crossing her fingers for a miracle, Sakura vacated the premises, opting to take a stroll through the heart of the village where she could really clear her head. Avoiding the outdoor celebrations was hard, as there were so many, which meant that she was led down the only path that cut directly through New Tanami Bridge and rounded off at the village gates. Sakura took a leisurely pace, pulling her thin woollen cardigan closer to her body. Perhaps she should have brought her coat with her. In that thin scarlet dress and leggings that were emphasised by knee-length boots, Sakura was freezing her tits off.

_Definitely should have brought my coat_, she moaned despairingly, rubbing her arms in a feeble attempt to stave off the cold. Naturally, her efforts of friction were feeble at best, and the hairs on her arms and neck only rose further in protest to the prickly cold nipping at her from every angle.

''Urgh...'' Sakura grunted softly, her exhalation glittering like a misty cloud of diamonds in the soft moonlight overhead. It was snowing softly, and the thick crunch of it underfoot was hugely unpleasant, as the cold seeped through to her woolly-clad feet, and she wished that she had worn another layer for just this reason.

''Ironic that I'm supposedly so intelligent, and yet I am under-dressed for the weather.'' She grunted tersely, a derisive sneer lifting at her plush lips as she let slip another shuttered breath, the sound of snow parting beneath her feet and her even breaths filling the muted silence of her surroundings. Already the commotion within the city had become a muffled buzz in the backdrop, and Sakura relished in the tranquility that came with it.

Finally, a place to escape the droning thoughts of yearning that had plagued her for so long! In that moment, Sakura finally realised just how tired she was; drained dry of her composure, it was all she could do to keep herself from bursting into tears. She had so many things, so many people, to be grateful and happy about in her life, and yet even so, she couldn't help but feel bereft as desolation crept up on her from the shadows. She missed him terribly, there was no doubt about it. But even so, it was pathetic to hold onto wishful thinking. _Shooting stars are not a promise_, she screamed internally, and for once, her Inner was blessedly quiet. _Don't house unrealistic expectations! It isn't fair on him, nor me._

Unwittingly, tears filled her eyes, and she blinked them away, allowing the bitter chill to absolve them from her. She would not be weak. He would be ashamed of her if she was anything less than a pillar of strength in the wake of his absence. She didn't want him to witness her weakness. Never again. Sighing and shaking off the emotion with a jerk of her whole body, Sakura opened her eyes, blinking away the pesky water sprites that were clinging to her vision and blotting out the moonlit path in front of her.

Funny, how she tried and failed to be resolute at the crucial moments. Or so she thought. When she went to forcefully wipe at her eyes, she found them blessedly dry. Her path, however, was filled with shadow. It didn't help that the moon was obscured behind clouds. She held her breath, and peered into the gloom ahead. Although it was dark, it was clear that in the distance, there was a black stain that overlapped the shadows, casting a deeper darkness that extended its reaches to the tips of her toes.

Try as she might, the stain had no form from this distance, and thus she could not discern what was unfolding before her eyes. She took a hesitant step forward, pronounced by the sound of her boots scraping against the stone pathway at her feet where the snow had yet to fully cover. The sound echoed, and whatever was in the darkness had stilled. Her eyes could not discern any features, but it was big anyhow. Naruto's words fluttered to mind. _I left you a present._ Perhaps this was it? It made some sense, after all. Taking the path that gave her the best chance at a reprieve was only one feature that the blonde must have designed in this little scheme of his.

And it looked as if Kakashi was in on it too. Why else would her lazy sensei advise her to leave the party, unattended, and in the cold no less, unless there was something to be gained from it? Rolling her pretty green eyes, Sakura huffed an amused smile at their collective ingenuity.

Well they had gotten her mind off of other matters. That counted for something. A loud, reverberating echo rang out in the din, and it was only then that she realised that it had been a footstep. Was it hers?

Surely not. She didn't recall moving―

Another step. And another. Slow and unhurried, the steps approached, bringing the dark shadow into the light that cacooned Sakura's shrinking figure. She was confident that she could handle a threat should the need arise, but in her current outfit, it would be... difficult. But none of that seemed to matter, the closer the person, easily male, came; closing the distance between them.

And when they finally stepped into the light, Sakura's breath caught in her throat. _You'd better hop to it. It's cold outside. **Don't you have somewhere to be?** Get some air. _A multitude of voices filled her mind, drowning out her own thoughts as she gaped at the dark stain that had been plaguing her thoughts for the last two and a half years.

A heartbreakingly beautiful face stared back at her, expression neutral but expressive never the less. He was clearly amused, flickering merth dancing in his heated onyx orbs as he held her gaze with an intensity that could smoulder through metal without issue or qualm. His lips parted, but he paused, watching Sakura fumble for words that were clearly escaping the reach of her tongue.

There was so much to say, _too_ much. Sakura didn't even know where to begin. A garbling sound resembling a flustered puppy's whine was all she could physically omit, her mind still catching up with her out of body experience. This was real. _He_ was real. She unconsciously reached out with a trembling hand, pressing it hesitantly against the solid build of his chest. His heart thrummed slowly beneath her palm, and she curled her fingers into the coarse warmth of his shirt in response.

''Sasuke...-kun...?'' He inclined his head in affirmation, the slightness of the movement so very _him_ that tears sprung into her eyes, unbidden, once more.

''You're really here...?'' Sasuke nodded, eyes carefully exploring the familiar yet changed features of his female team mate. She had grown up. With a perfunctory glance down at the rest of her, Sasuke concluded to himself that yes, she really _had_ grown a lot in his absence.

As had he. In Sakura's eyes, he had become so painfully handsome that her whole body ached the longer she looked at him. It didn't seem fair that one man could be so blindingly perfect in every way, but she couldn't complain; only stand there in absolute awe of his realness.

Sasuke watched as her green eyes glistened with tears unshed as she gazed up at him with her neck craned; he had grown immensely tall, much taller than Naruto, and certainly taller than their sensei. It hit her then, in that moment, that he was now a man. Not a child turned teenager ridden with sorrow and profound hatred, a thirst for vengeance and bloodlust, but a young man, who had shed the shell of his youth and become an exceptional Adonis.

And here she was, as short and homely as ever in comparison. Never the less... all thoughts fell away when he leaned closer to her, peering into her face as if truly fascinated with what he had found there. She could scarcely breathe. So startled was she at his presence and his current proximity that she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. ''If you're my Christmas present, then where's the pretty wrapping paper?''

His expression morphed into stunned surprise at her strangely bold question, before the ghost of a smile tugged furtively at the stubborn pull of his lips, and a reverberating chuckle filled the air between them, the tenor deep and smooth like satin against silk.

''It got lost in courier. I told the dobe that it was better to travel express, but he's surprisingly uptight. Said that my own natural wrapping was as good as any.''

Sakura bit her lip in surprise at his joke, stunned that he had the good humour to share it with her so casually, before she threw her arms around his neck and laughed. Her laughter turned into sobs when his sole hand came to rest upon the small of her back, holding her to him in blissful rapture, and she clung fast to his craning figure, which had dipped down to accommodate for her lack of height.

''Looks like my wish finally came true...'' Sakura mumbled into the crook of his neck, Sasuke pulling back to look at her questioningly. When she merely brushed it off as ''It's nothing,'' he held her gaze for a precious moment, before he raised his right hand, pressing his fore and middle fingers to the centre of her forehead against the dark diamond that rested there, mirroring the affectionate gesture of his departure nearly three years ago.

Her cheeks flushed prettily under his hooded gaze, and under the lapis lazuli stained sky, he smiled for her.

_''I'm home.''_

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><p>*.*.*.*.*.*.*<p>

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><p><strong>Ending Remarks:<strong> _Well, how about that. I go in to write a drabble, and out comes a fucking novella. Whoops? Uh, so yeah, I suck at this anthology thing, but I will do my very best to post a new one every day for the remainder of this month. (:_

_Hopefully, they won't turn out as long-winded as this one did. Never the less, I loved writing the fluff, as progressively as it appears, so please excuse me while I go flail over the ships~~ *^*_

_Please do drop me a review! Look forward to the next one!_

-x-**R**_i_n-x-


	2. Confession

**Author's Note:** _And here I bring you the second one! This is pure fluff. I hope it gives you cavities goddammit._

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><p><em><strong>Melt the Mistletoe<strong>_

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><p><strong>Two:<strong> Confession

_**.**_

_**Characters: Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura**_

_**Categories: Romance**_

_**Rating: K**_

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><p>Excitement fluttered beneath the taut pull of Sakura's tummy as she knelt, in silence, upon the upturned sheets of her bed. Clothes were littered across the dark maroon carpet at the foot of her bed, lying forgotten in the wake of the sight outside. White tufts of snow sifted through the early morning air, tumbling in gentle patters and arcing to meet their end on the ever-growing pile of sleet upon the ground.<p>

_It's really Christmas, huh?_ She thought with a smile, which grew in volume the more she absorbed the expanding winter wonderland around her. It was truly idyllic; the ideal backdrop to enjoy a romantic interlude with her newly instated boyfriend. The butterflies in her stomach jumped chaotically in response to her musings. It was a little known fact that Uchiha Sasuke had been the one to approach her; most people just naturally assumed that it had been Sakura's persistence that had finally paid off.

But no, it had not gone that way at all. He came to her, one day in early November, expression carefully schooled into neutrality as he took her hand in his, and led her away from her apartment. They had become very close since his recent return from his explorations, but that line between friendship and something more substantial had yet to be crossed. Sakura yearned for his closeness, and as he readjusted his grip on her gloved palm and linked their fingers together, a sense of deep fulfillment pervaded her senses.

She had never expected anything akin to this. Dreamed of it, yes, but to be able to so casually hold his hand, in the presence of others, without batting an eyelash, without him shirking her off or giving her a scathing look of reprimand? It all seemed like a wonderfully crafted illusion. And even if it was a genjutsu, she had no plans of ever disrupting its flow.

The beginnings of winter were setting in all around them; the tri-coloured leaves were falling, crunching crisply underfoot, and the air had developed a sharp, frosty bite. Sakura could see her exhalations fan out into little puffs of mist, the heat relieved from its exit warming her chapped lips and blowing back like a cold slap of reality against her cheeks; almost like a sign that this was indeed real, and not a figment of her deluded imaginings.

Her lips toyed with a small smile too impertinent to remain internal, and her cheeks darkened visibly when Sasuke came to a stop by a wilting sakura tree, turning to face her. Even in its state of decay, it was beautiful, mottled bruises of pink, purple and maroon folding over the bare branches and shielding the raw skeleton from the bitter chill of the fickle wind. But nothing could even begin to compare to the sinful appeal of the man before her, whose hand had yet to let hers loose; it remained, clasped amidst a tangle of fingers, and it seemed to latch onto her with a permanence that jump-started Sakura's pulse to a tremendous gallop.

She was more than aware of how deeply his very presence affected her; it was plain, had been plain, in the way she had adored him for so long, unwavering and unconditionally, and she knew that he knew it too. But still, he had not let go of that hand; he held fast, and the seriousness of his expression set her blood ablaze. Her breaths came a little faster as he closed the distance between them. The prosthetic limb that rested just beneath his left elbow was a bittersweet sight as he raised it up to catch the falling snowflake that had settled itself upon her rosy locks.

His mobility was fantastic, she knew, but there was no sensation to stimulate his brain's synapses; although he could touch her with those remarkable fingers of which he could move of his own will, he could not _feel_ her, and Sakura's heart clenched tightly in her chest every time she reminded herself of this. She was so thankful that he still had an arm to make tangible connections with, one that carried the warmth of a human being's touch.

It reassured her that he was here, with her, in this place of utmost quietude. Sasuke ran the cold fingertips down her cheek, tracing her jawline before he trailed them down to rest at the hollow of her throat, against the place where her heart was beating its fastest. He, of course, could not feel it with his lack of attachment to sensation, but he could absorb the vibrations that ran through her into himself, and he smiled softly, knowingly, when her flushed cheeks darkened for reasons not associated with the cold.

Sakura was lost in his dark eyes, so expressive and yet so cryptic, and she raised her free hand to cradle the false one crested against her chest. It was smooth and very cold, but she didn't flinch away. Her own warmth could thaw away the frostbite that had settled into his left hand. Her green eyes sparkling in the early morning light, and a smile curving unwittingly on her lips, Sakura gazed up at him in quiet awe and adoration that spoke volumes, and he allowed his countenance to soften in response.

Even if it wasn't love, Sakura was unbelievably happy that he could look at her with such affection clear in his expression. Had the world been flipped on its back, and had they not managed to reconcile, then surely such joy would not exist. Sakura was filled with life, love and hope, and she wanted more than anything to share it with him. He deserved as much, after having lived a life full of misery and absolute despair for so long. No longer would he walk in the darkness. She would pull him along by his prosthetic arm if need be into the world of light that he filled her with, and would walk alongside him forever.

She had decided all of this a very long time ago, and nothing would dissuade her from her path. ''Is anything the matter, Sasuke-kun?'' Sakura inquired softly, tilting her head curiously as she observed his still form. It shook her how tall he had become, no matter how often they were together, even when Naruto was present. The blonde was no slouch, but he barely scraped the raven haired ninja's shoulder.

''_Bloody hell_, teme! What the fuck did you _eat_ to become the Iron Giant?'' Naruto had exclaimed, flabbergasted, when Sasuke had stood from his seat across from Kakashi, having freshly returned to Konoha from his expedition, to greet his foolish best friend properly. Sakura giggled a little at the memory, Sasuke's pointed stare washing away her amusement and replacing it with trepidation. Oh right, he had something to talk to her about.

''Nothing in particular.'' Was his terse response as he fixed his gaze with hers. Sakura swallowed at the intensity of his exterior, her mouth feeling unpleasantly dry as she held her chin up a little higher in a show of subservience; if he wanted her full attention, he had it. The wind tousled their hair, and when a stray lock fell over her forehead, Sasuke raised his left hand, clasping the soft strands between clumsy fingers. She thought he would merely tuck it behind her ear as she would have; instead, he bent forward and pressed his lips to the loose strands, his eyes locked with hers even then.

Her knees nearly buckled from shock, but his remaining hand kept her grounded where she stood. Stuttering, Sakura fumbled for words to fill the mounting tension between them, her eyes looking fixedly at the ground whilst she shifted from one foot to the other in an age-old habit that calmed her racing nerves. ''Uh, ano, is there something that you want from me, S-Sasuke-kun? I-I mean, is there anything I can ―''

''You.'' He stated simply, confounding her even further. _Me? What on earth...?_

''Ano, you as in me? What do you mean, Sasuke-kun?'' Sakura was genuinely confused. Just what was he getting at, other than―but it couldn't mean... could it? Dare she hope it be true? ''You... want... _me_...? As in you want me to do something for you, right? You know I'm more than happy to―''

''_You_.'' He repeated once more, exasperation playing on his handsome features as he gripped her hand with renewed vigor.

''What I want is _you_, Sakura.'' It was like he had dumped ice water over her head. There was only one plausible way she could interpret those words, and she was too afraid to even open her mouth to speak, let alone breathe. Tears pooled in her eyes, blurring her vision as her head snapped back up to look into his face searchingly.

Not a hint of malice or derisive amusement to be found. He was being completely serious, honest, with her. A small whimper left her lips as he wiped his prosthetic thumb against the corner of one of her eyes, where a traitorous tear had fallen.

''Be mine.'' There was no question in his tone, but she knew by reading deeper into those two precious words, that there was a tenuous frailty, a vulnerability, that he had exposed by choosing to give them to her. He was offering up a part of himself that not even he was comfortable with to her, and it was the greatest gift of all.

Through eyes burning with tears, Sakura gave him her brightest smile, a joyous laugh erupting from her diapraghm before she reached up to cup the side of his face, flushed with cold and embarrassment, and responded without a hint of hesitation detectable in her voice.

''I've been yours from the very beginning, Sasuke-kun.''

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>Sakura shook the memory from her mind, returning her attention to the frozen paradise outside, a newfound love and appreciation for the winter season filling her to the brim with happiness as she scooted out of bed, having caught a glimpse of a familiar dark head of gravity-defying hair making its way towards her apartment. She all but flew down the flight of stairs that took her to ground level, ankle-warmers and boots shielding her feet from the chilly wooden floorboards as she skidded to a dramatic halt in the living room.<p>

She checked her reflection in the mirror, straightening out the rebellious strands of hair that had moved with the momentum of gravity instead of staying neatly in place, before she fluffed up her pretty lace chiffon dress, ignoring the impracticality of it as she spun once for extra measure, making sure that she had enhanced all of her best features―features that had blossomed late, but were well worth the wait, as she now had a figure that rivalled Hinata's and Ino's.

She grabbed her purse, parka, mittens and her house keys from the kitchen counter, licking her lips quickly before a sharp rap on the door informed her of her boyfriend's (Inner Sakura swooned and stooped into a perpetual fainting spell every time she used the word so familiarly) perfunctory arrival. Always a stickler for keeping the time. Sakura grinned, emerald irises alight with bubbling anticipation as she turned the deadlock over, and opened the door.

''Good morning, Sasuke-kun!'' Sakura chirped enthusiastically, tacking on an overzealous ''Merry Christmas!'' for extra measure, before she stepped forward on her toes and pressed a soft kiss to his cool cheek.

''Hn.'' He grunted in response, but he smiled at her sweet expression and wrapped his sole hand around hers, raising it to his lips where he left a searing kiss that lingered, tingling hotly against the taut skin, hours after its placement.

''Merry Christmas, Sakura. Ready to head out?''

Sakura pulled on her jacket, enjoying the slight disappointment that flickered over Sasuke's face at having his view thwarted by the blasted weather, before she closed her door with a definitive _'thud!'_ and locked it for extra measure. Turning back to face him with her brightest smile yet, she nodded in affirmation, taking his hand once again in hers as they walked at a casual pace down the quiet Konoha streets, together (_at last_).

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p><strong>Ending Remarks:<strong> _I JUST WANTED PURE, UNADULTERATED FLUFF OKAY―_

_MY GOD DO I NEED THIS―_

_Please kindly leave a review! I would love to hear from you all! Be back tomorrow with the next update. Stay tuned for more perfection guys (the pairing guys, not the writing). (:_

_Until then!_

-x-**R**_i_n-x-


	3. Date

**Author's Note:** _Thank you to the lovely people who reviewed, especially those who have left me consecutive ones! I live for readers like you who take the time to respect the time I spent writing these little drabbles! Much love, the ensuing fluff is for you!_

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><p><em><strong>Melt the Mistletoe<strong>_

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><p><strong>Three:<strong> Date

_**.**_

_**Characters: Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura**_

_**Categories: Romance, Humour**_

_**Rating: T (for language)**_

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><p>Sakura often mistook anticipation for nerves. The tumultuous lurching of her stomach as it turned over and over and <em>over<em>; the expansive trembling jostling her through to the bone; the sweat gathering against the silk of her skin; the mounting terror filling her as she paced back and forth, waiting. The air was crisp and carried the scent of decaying leaves, emulsifying under the mushy wet snow at her feet, and she inhaled it deeply, as if to overpower the tension quickly strangling her pounding heart.

She had never dated anyone before, let alone _gone on_ a date; and no, the ones with her father and her friends did not count, stressing her out even more so than ever. Sakura had never even had a boyfriend that wasn't a team mate and just a male acquaintance, so she had no prior experiences to draw from. As far as she knew―of Sasuke, and from what little she had gleaned from him himself―her boyfriend of all of a week had never entertained the whimsy of dating before then either, so she knew that he was bound to be nervous as well.

He would simply internalise it better than she currently was; after all, she was renowned for wearing her heart on her sleeve, and it was plain as day that it was thumping towards cardiac arrest.

God, she needed to get a grip. Sasuke had not exactly ''asked her out'' as much as he had told her to meet him at Tanami Bridge at eleven sharp on Sunday afternoon, and so here she was, an entire hour early as she breathed through her mouth in order to stave off the anxiety attack that was bubbling to the surface, her face perpetually flushed over the implications of the day ahead of her.

Sakura had grown to be very close with Sasuke since he had returned six months previously, after his abrupt exit from the newly built Konohagakure gates, and they had slipped into such a comfortable routine around one another that when the raven haired Adonis turned to her last week and stated that they should meet up without the company of Naruto tying them both down, Sakura had immediately agreed to it without really thinking over the implications of his proposal.

Although not particularly romantic, the fact that Sasuke had gone to the effort to ditch the formalities with her (as well as the ever-invasive third-wheel in their not-quite-there-yet relationship) and ask her plainly without a thought was incredibly sweet never the less. It showed her that he wasn't embarrassed to be associated with her outside of Naruto, and even preferred her company over the blonde's when he had a spare moment of recreation needing to be filled. What was even sweeter about this was the fact that instead of doing any number of other things than merely hanging out with her for the day, he had chosen the latter to occupy himself with.

When Ino had inquired, with every ounce of dubiousness a best friend could muster, as to the nature of their bizarre new dynamic, Sakura had shrugged it off. It did not bother her whether or not he saw what they were doing today as a ''date,'' so long as she had the opportunity to be the one doing it with him.

She paused mid-thought, blushing at the insinuations that followed with that entirely open-ended hypothetical, before her Inner stomped them out furiously and screamed for her to get her shit together, because there Sasuke was, sauntering towards her with the casual elegance of a well-trained shinobi operative. _Not that he isn't that at all, Sakura_, her Inner admonished chidingly, rolling her eyes to high-heaven and slapping her metaphysical forehead in exasperation.

The pink haired medic swallowed her protests and nearly choked on her own saliva the closer Sasuke came. He was dressed to suit the weather, a black long-sleeved polo shirt fitting closely to his chest and arms and abs and―_really not important Sakura!_ She inhaled, shakily, and prayed that her traitorous thoughts would not turn wanton. It was hard. A warm trench-coat was pulled taut against the broad set of his shoulders, offset by the long black trousers that accentuated the sheer length of his legs beautifully, and to top it off, he wore combat boots that laced up to mid-calf.

Holy shit. He was literally her dark knight. A navy blue scarf was draped artfully around his neck, acting as a muffler for his face as he buried his gloved hands deeper into his coat's pockets. Only one of his hands could feel the cold, but unlike Naruto, Sasuke was not fashion-challenged, and for the sake of his own propriety (_for a shred of normalcy_, Sakura thought sadly), he had elected to wear the twin mitt without complaint.

It didn't matter a bit to Sakura. He looked incredible. Well, he always did, but today it seemed as if he had put in a little more thought into his outfit's coordinating elements; when Sakura peered closely, she swore she could see a necklace peeking out from beneath the soft (_expensive_) material of his scarf. Something caught off the sunlight's glimmer, and glinted strongly in affirmation of Sakura's notion. So he was wearing a necklace! What a surprise. She hadn't expected that at all. The one impression that Sakura had had of Sasuke was that he wasn't the materialistic type, nor the type to embellish himself with trinkets; but it seemed that even that was misplaced.

Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She had learnt something new about Sasuke, something that only _she_ was aware of, and the excitement that settled inside of her at this realisation promptly squashed all of her previous jitters. What did she have to be nervous for? She had anticipated this day for as long as she could proclaim that she had loved this man; if she could act normally around him every other day, surely this would be no different. _Besides_, she thought with a gentle smile in his direction, _he would never do anything to make me uncomfortable. He's too considerate to._

With that thought steeling her resolve (as well as the rest of her nerves), Sakura turned to face Sasuke, who was only a few feet away from her, his dark eyes trained fixedly on her face as he came to an eventual stop about three inches away from her petite figure. She quailed a little inside and cursed her damned genetics to hell for making her so short (it didn't help her that Sasuke had shot up a foot since he had returned to Konoha), but soon her bitterness was washed away when Sasuke raised his right hand and promptly flicked her on the forehead, smack in the centre against the dark diamond that lay there proudly.

At her shocked gasp―which in all honesty sounded a little more affronted than she would have liked―Sasuke smirked a little, but the expression was softened when he brushed her hair from her face, fingers trailing fleetingly against the exposed flush of her cheek before he allowed his hand to drop to his side. He proffered it then, a smile toying futilely on his smirking mouth as he watched her blush at the movement. Sakura reached out, hesitant to close the distance between them, hoping and praying to god that this wasn't some cruel prank, when he engulfed her palm in his, linking their fingers together firmly before he looked her in the eye; not a shred of anxiety showed in his expression.

''Let's go, Sakura.'' His tone was smooth, and left little room for argument as he led her along the path, slowing his stride to match her stuttering pace. Sakura looked up at his profile from the corner of her eye, noting that he was gazing straight ahead, not a hint of emotion expressed on his face. It wasn't as if it was blank, by any means. In fact, he looked peaceful, if Sakura had to choose a word to describe the tranquillity that had settled over his countenance. Utterly at peace with the world around him.

Yes, he still had his monsters to deal with. Ghosts that haunted his every waking moment, plaguing his thoughts and contaminating his feelings until all that was left was complete desolation. But he was learning to accept them. Accept the scars that marred his heart, and teach them to heal themselves through the passage called time. And through it all, he had his team mates to lean on for support; he had her. It might seem insignificant, and god had Sakura thought that time and time again, but it was more than the nothing that he had had to live with for so long, and it would at least help to sustain him for a while.

That was all Sakura could ever hope to ask for.

She tightened her grip on his hand, biting her lower lip when he cast her a sweeping glance from his periphery. She knew that it hadn't been too bold when he squeezed back, his fingers pressing intimately against the shell of her left hand as he watched her with a somewhat curious glint in his eyes.

Ever the analyst of Team 7.

Sakura felt her lips twitching, desperate to the point of threatening to split her face in two if she didn't smile back at his endearing expression, but she withheld it with every ounce of willpower within her. She was not keen on the idea of looking like a complete moron when the love of her life was so very close to her.

Sasuke didn't seem to mind her strangeness, though, for he merely shook his head from side to side, his dark bangs swaying enigmatically in the wind as he chuckled to himself, an amused smile taunting her as it pulled at his lips, only to be smothered by his sudden exhalation. A misty cloud gathered in front of his face, before it promptly sunk into his cheeks, which were lightly flushed with cold.

It was a rare sight indeed, for he normally had such clear white skin; to see colour staining its unblemished perfection was bizarrely seductive. Sakura could practically hear the crunch of her teeth sinking into her bottom lip, as she gnawed away the very explicit images that danced provocatively through her mind.

Oh dear lord of god, she was decrepit to the core! Here she is, strolling through a winter paradise with her maybe-lover, and instead of enjoying the moment like a normal woman in love, all she can think about is his face, dripping with sweat and contorted in sweet ecstasy. How fucked up could she possibly be?

Noticing her escalated breathing, Sasuke glanced at Sakura from the corner of his dark eye, surprised to see her face so heavily stained with red. He knew the difference between being cold and a blush, for he had come to see the difference with his own eyes many a time before, and he couldn't help the smug satisfaction that filled him at her obvious distress. It had never occurred to him that being the cause of someone's nervousness could be this pleasing, and the male in him swooped down on the chance to cause more mischief.

''Sakura.'' The sound of her name leaving his lips snapped Sakura's attention back to earth, just in time to see Sasuke pull to a stop just ahead of her. Surprise evident on her face, Sakura looked around searchingly, trying to gauge the reason behind their abrupt pause in activity. When Sasuke leaned forward, leaving but an inch between their faces, allowing his dark bangs to tickle the flesh of her cheeks as his breath ghosted against her lips provocatively, Sakura swore her head was going to explode from the bloodrush that had settled there.

_Oh sweet mother of heaven and hell_, she screamed internally, the decibels rising to a near deafening screech on behalf of her trusty Inner self as Sasuke eyeballed her without expression. The minute his nose brushed fleetingly against hers, Sakura swore her lady-bits were going to dive headfirst into his pants whether she wanted them to or otherwise, commonsense be damned, and as she stood there, absolutely stupefied beyond belief, Sasuke leaned in just a little further, lips against the shell of her now very red ears.

He exhaled, and then spoke, amusement all too clear in the husky tone of his tenor.

''Are you colder than I thought you were, or am I just too hot for you to handle?'' Sakura's eyes widened as he pulled back, unabashedly smirking at her look of absolute surprise and disbelief before his lips split into the most gorgeous smile she had ever seen, a deep, resonant laugh following suit and widening her eyes even further. Had he... just _pranked_ her? Did he seriously _make a joke_ and then _laugh_?

If it was even possible, her cheeks darkened further, which only fuelled Sasuke's teasing laughter even more as he poked her flaring cheek with his prosthetic hand. Not even for a moment had he let her own go, opting to amplify her reasons to blush further as he toyed with the soft material of her mittens with his sensate fingertips.

The mirth in his obsidian irises was all too clear, the straight white teeth in his mouth gleaming like freshly fallen snow as he chuckled off his amusement, the smile still in place as he pulled Sakura as close as he could, leaning his forehead against hers and resting his left hand around her neck and shoulders, rooting her in her place.

They stood there like that, Sakura's sole hand gripping her chest in an attempt to slow the treacherous thumping of her wildly beating heart, for a time; Sasuke's breath warm on her cold cheeks as he toyed with the ends of her cropped hair with a hand that would never enjoy the feeling of its texture.

Sakura sucked in a breath, before she found herself frantically covering her nose in time to catch her sudden sneeze; it really was quite cold outside. Sasuke's expression visibly softened from its unhabitual mischievousness, lips curling gently upwards as he loosened the scarf from around his neck, winding the extra length of it around her shoulders and inevitably pulling her closer to his still frame.

Her emerald green orbs flickered upward, falling into the spell that his infinitely dark eyes cast over her, and for the umpteenth time, she fought back a smile that was destined to torment her chapped lips for the remainder of her days with him.

''Thank you, Sasuke-kun.''

His eyes fluttered in surprise, and he tilted his head a little, leaning back enough so that he could observe her expression from a safe distance.

''For what?'' He replied nonchalanatly, the woollen texture of his glove tickling the patch of bared skin at the back of her neck and raising the hairs on her flesh for reasons more complex than just the cold.

''For choosing to spend the day with me. And for being you.''

Surprise registered on his face, but it quickly morphed into embarrassment, as he looked off to the side, his own cheeks alight with a tinge of pink that was in no way because of the frosty air around them.

''Hn.'' He grunted quietly, and his lips pulled into a taut line as he fully removed the scarf from around his neck, wrapping it snuggly around Sakura's slim build until her face was buried in his warm, sweet scent. It was musky and wholesome, and she loved the bitter contrast it carried against his aftershave, which was wholly refreshing to her numb nostrils.

As she inhaled it deeply within herself, Sasuke readjusted his grip on her hand and continued onward down the path he had planned for them, Sakura clasping onto his warmth and allowing a grin to break over her face, hidden behind the soft fabric of his scarf. She watched his back carefully, a few steps behind him, noting with much pleasure that the tips of his ears were just the slightest bit redder than they usually were, and when he paused to allow her to match his stride with her own, she couldn't help but feel her heart swell with a love that could never be quelled.

_Without a doubt, the best first date_, she thought with a smile that was full of all of her adoration. _And surely one of **many** to come._

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><p><strong><em>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<em>**

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><p><strong>Ending Remarks:<strong> _Just shoot me, I have the feels and they're killing me―_

_I tried to keep Sasuke as IC as possible, and I hope that I managed to do so. Please bear in mind that he has changed as a person after everything he has gone through, and has since grown from his bad experiences, so I do feel like this would be a close representation to how he would have turned out, had he not suffered such tragedy in his life._

_But never the less, he has the remnants of his usual self floating about, and that makes his embarrassment more tangible and realistic. At least to me anyways. Let's face it, it's always fun to read and write about a flustered Sasuke. *^*_

_**PLEASE REVIEW**, guys! I deeply and sincerely appreciate every follow and favourite that I get, but when there is an obvious reader-base building up and a lack of feedback to show for it, I feel incredibly disheartened. Even if it's just to say ''I liked it'', every word is precious to me! So please, please, please leave me a comment! I'd love it, and it will encourage me to write more!_

_I received a review asking about whether or not this will become M. Well, I had no plans initially, but if you would like to see my take on their first time and the like, I am happy to include that somewhere in this drabble anthology series. Leave a review, and let me know guys! I can't read minds, after all. C;_

_Until tomorrow!_

-x-**R**_i_n-x-


	4. Kiss

**Author's Note:** _Thanks for the reviews guys! A shout-out to Fist of Fire, annesthetique, pinkshannaro, YuukiChanLove, zagoorian athena, C.A.M.E.O.1 and Only, rao hyuga 18 and especially Nagareboshi Star for their wonderful reviews! You guys rock._

_As an added note: listen to _Lauren Aquilina's_ ''**Wonder**.'' It really helps to set the tone for the fluff. *^*_

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><p><em><strong>Melt the Mistletoe<strong>_

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><p><strong>Four:<strong> Kiss

_**.**_

_**Characters: Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura**_

_**Categories: Romance**_

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><p>It was entirely unexpected to be woken at the crack of dawn at the sound of a pebble bouncing off of her bedroom window. Sakura, mind fogged over with sleep, turned amidst her sheets, as if facing away from the source of her problem would help it to melt away into the embrace of the falling snow outside. There was a blessed pause upon which Sakura settled into, inertia mounting behind her glassy eyes before she drifted off once more. Until another sharp rap tapped insistently against the durable glass; closer this time.<p>

Sitting groggily, the pinkette rubbed the sleep from her eyes, yawning into the palm of her right hand as she stretched the other above her head, rolling her spine and moaning softly at the satisfying _'crack!'_ that followed. Blinking rapidly, Sakura tossed the sheets from her legs, eyeing her window dubiously and with a hint of resentment, but she crawled over to it regardless, fumbling clumsily with the latch. Her fingers were tingling, numb from disuse and uncooperative because of it, and she cursed her faulty motor functions to hell and back as she fought for control.

When it finally came, Sakura unceremoniously pushed the old frame outwards, a vicious reprimand stinging at the end of her tongue as she opened her mouth to growl at her unwanted visitor for interrupting her rest, only to seconds later clam up in surprise when she saw Sasuke crouching on the tree branch closest to her bedroom window. He was casually flicking a smooth black stone into the air, and Sakura's eyes followed it almost hypnotically as it fell back into Sasuke's open palm, where it remained, folded beneath his fingers. She raised her gaze to meet with his, and was stunned to see his face, heavily flushed from the cold.

''Oh my―Sasuke-kun! How long have you―get in here this instant!'' Sakura exclaimed, flustered by his appearance as she held her hand out to him, beckoning him into the warmth of her home. He took heed of her plea, leaping forward onto the ledge of her little alcove before he stepped down into her room, careful not to land with his boots on her bed.

Sakura pulled the window shut, locking it in place before she slid to the edge of her bed; eyes following his figure as he surveyed the tidy space around him whilst her hands searched frantically for her silk night-robe. In only a thin singlet and her underwear, the pink haired kunoichi felt abashed and completely uncomfortable, and she wanted to take this opportunity to cover up before he actually caught an eyeful too much.

She found it, nestled precariously on the dresser across the room, and she was quick to pull it on while Sasuke observed her from his peripherals, a smirk dancing on his lips as he caught a generous peek of uncovered flesh, a little closer to her bottom than she would have liked.

Tying a messy knot at her waistline to keep the skimpy excuse of a robe in place (she officially hated Ino for reducing her to this in front of her boyfriend of three months), Sakura spun on her heel, huffing a breath out in order to disguise the little butterflies that were swelling in her stomach at having the dark haired Uchiha _in her bedroom._

This was certainly not how she had envisioned her morning playing out, not in the least bit. She shuffled nervously from one foot to the other, green eyes a little anxious and no longer weary as she found his dark irises scanning her from head to toe. She had to be quite the vision, hair mussed up like a crow's nest, dark shadows staining the hollows beneath her eyes like terrible bruises, red lines impressed on her face from restless tossing and turning.

Very attractive. She blushed at the intensity of his stare, and the colour brought her haggard appearance to life. Having worked like a dog for the last two weeks leading up to Christmas, Sakura was exhausted in every sense of the word; fatigue plagued her every molecule, and all she wished to do was sleep the tiredness away.

But all great plans are replaced with even better ones. Although it had not been her intention to start the day in this manner, already Sakura was anticipating what the rest of it had in store for her. The fact that Sasuke was here, at such an early hour, meant that he had to have come to see her specifically.

She lived out of his way, at the other end of the village, and there was no way he could merely brush it off as _''I was just passing by,''_ especially at this time. Her lips quirked into a small smile, teeth nipping at her bottom lip as he stepped forward, face neutral as he brushed his right hand against her forehead.

It was freezing, and Sakura flinched a little bit in surprise as the chill seeped into her warm flesh. Noticing this, Sasuke retracted his hand, only to have Sakura wrap her fingers around his own and place his hand against the hollow of her throat. Her warmth seeped in through his fingertips, and he splayed his large palm over the expanse of exposed skin in wonderment at its softness.

The pinkette swallowed an embarrassed gasp at the movement, but made no effort to pry his hand away, so he left it there, allowing the cold to be thawed away into nothingness by the heat of her love. He smiled a little, only a hint of awkwardness tinging the gesture as he looked into her eyes appreciatively, pleased that she was there to keep him warm when he could no longer even feel the cold around him.

Sakura ran her fingers through his hair, brushing the fresh snow from its resting place against his scalp before it had the chance to melt, before she allowed herself a gentle caress at the base of his head; her cheeks a little pink as he raised an inquisitive brow in her direction.

Never the less, he indulged her affectionate gesture and followed it with one of his own. Leaning down, Sasuke brushed the strands of hair away from her forehead with his prosthetic hand before he pressed his soft lips against her little diamond, the smile returning to his face as he felt her breath and pulse quicken under his touch.

That was the first truly intimate show of affection that he had ever given her, one that clearly defined the nature of their relationship, and as elation filled Sakura's wildly thrashing heart, Sasuke stepped back from her, his hands resting on her hips as he kept a careful distance between them. The insinuation was all too clear. It was much too soon to be jumping into anything reckless, and as much as Inner Sakura screamed to hell with propriety, Sakura agreed with his decision to take things slowly.

Neither of them were ready for anything beyond the comfortable rapport that they had steadily built up between them, and although Sasuke had shown her on several occasions that he was fully committed to her and to their relationship, he was still wary about letting her have full power over him. She understood it, almost painfully well, but it did not bother her as her friend's implied it should have, because she knew that he loved her; even if he did not say so in as many words.

Sasuke was a man of action, after all, and little gestures like this were all Sakura needed to remind herself of this unchanging fact.

''About Christmas,'' Sasuke said quietly, startling Sakura from her reverie and bringing her focus back onto him. He looked a little glum, as he gazed into her face searchingly, and she knew then that this wasn't just a social call.

''Kakashi has assigned the dobe and I on a mission, so I won't be able to spend the day with you tomorrow.'' Sasuke finished just as somberly, clearly a little annoyed that he had to break his promise with her―more worried that she would be upset with him.

He couldn't bear the thought of her being unhappy, but he knew that honesty was the best policy, and he would rather her hear it from him than from a messenger sent via their lackadaisical ex-sensei. Or worse yet, from Naruto. That idiot didn't have a shred of tact within him, after all. Sasuke felt a pained wince overtake his features as he thought fleetingly of the poor Hyuuga girl having to put up with Naruto's matter-of-fact manner of dropping bombshells on people, and a sincere wave of pity washed over him.

Sasuke shook off his ponderings, glancing down at the disheartened face of his lover, who was desperately staving off her disappointment with a weak smile that spoke volumes. Sakura knew that it wasn't his fault or intention to hurt her, and she could see the guilt tiptoeing into his expression the longer he looked into her shattering composure, so she sucked in a breath and tried her best not to pout or tear up. _It's always a random assignment_, Sakura thought benevolently. _Kakashi-sensei wouldn't just send him away if he absolutely had no other choice in the matter._

Even so, the pinkette could not fight the bitterness that welled up inside of her. She had so been looking forward to her date with Sasuke. She hadn't seen him in the two weeks that she had been shacked up in the hospital for in the hopes of this glorious day, and those hopes had all but been shattered at his news. Suddenly it seemed that all of her hard work had been for naught, for now the light of her Christmas holiday had been expunged by armory and days of ceaseless worrying.

''Sakura? Are you alright?'' Sasuke questioned her gently, his voice soft and persuasive as he tilted her gloomy face up to meet with his own. Biting her lip, Sakura nodded, swallowing heavily before she parted her lips to speak.

''I'm a little bit sad, but it's okay Sasuke-kun. I know you didn't expect any of this. Just _please_, stay safe, and watch each other's backs. I don't want a repeat performance of your last battle together.'' They both flinched, thinking back to the day when the two friends, once at odds, had ripped each other's arms off from the sheer force of their attacks, and Sakura paled when he gripped her hip a little harder with his false hand.

It served as a constant reminder, of two lives reconciled, and two lives nearly lost. Had she not arrived in time, then Sasuke shuddered to think of what would have happened. _I would have died without her_, he thought with a lingering glance into her shadowed features. _I will die without her._ Sasuke could not fathom his life without her now. She was inexplicably woven into his very DNA, and was thus irreplaceable. He couldn't envision tomorrow without her smiling face in it.

So to have so evidently hurt her, even without the intention of doing so, he had effectively hurt himself as well. He had always hated being the sole cause of her tears and her despair, and yet he seemed to have a natural talent for it. His very life was corrosive to her own, but she continued to take his burns without complaint, because she loved him so dearly that it only caused her more heartache.

Sasuke fervently wished he wasn't such a selfish creature by nature; he would have been able to let her go, to find real happiness. But he had come to understand that _he_ was that happiness, and the greedy monster that was his heart devoured her affection like a beast starved. He had also come to realise that he couldn't bear the thought of her giving that love to anyone else but him, and so he held her close to his heart, closer than anyone else had ever been to it, for fear of her escaping through his fingertips. He had discarded her once before. He would never do so again.

''The mission doesn't depart until tomorrow.'' Sasuke stated blandly, running his hands up and down against her sides as he regained her attention once more. Sakura felt her face pinkening as tingles shot up her spine at his wandering appendages brushing up against her ribcage, not failing to catch the implicit tone that he had adopted in addressing her.

''So I was thinking that we could spend today together instead.'' A hopeful glean in his dark eyes, Sasuke looked down at her, an almost shy smile on his lips as he watched for her reaction like a hawk. Sakura blushed full-force, her eyes watery and a little unfocused as she nodded enthusiastically to his proposal.

''I'd love that.'' She whispered softly, her voice thickened with emotion as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her height, nuzzling her face into the crook of his shoulder and leaving a careful kiss against the bared skin she found there.

She knew it was a bold move, but when she felt his own lips press against the top of her head, she knew that he hadn't minded. Squeezing her hips langorously between one practiced hand and one that was learning to touch again, Sasuke pulled away from her embrace, hands attached to her waist as he led her out of her bedroom and into the kitchen.

He didn't much feel like going out in that accursed winter's chill again, so he had settled for a day inside with the lovely woman in front of him, who giggled girlishly as he lifted her with ease onto the kitchenette, trapping her between his body and the wall behind them. His expression was playful, a nice change of pace from his carefully placed stoicism, and as he parted her thighs so that he could settle between them, Sakura couldn't help but admire his gusto.

They had never gone this far before. Usually it would be holding hands and hugging at most, and so Sakura felt her stomach drop into the floor when he suddenly kissed her on the tip of her nose, mischief dancing in his eyes. He had done that on purpose, specifically to get a rise out of her, and goddammit, it was working! Sakura inhaled, the breath that followed stuttered and halting as she averted her eyes to somewhere over his shoulder. He chuckled, low and soft, into her ear, pressing a fleeting kiss to her cheek before he rested his head in the warmth of her shoulder, arms wrapping around her and pulling her flush against him.

Sakura tightened her own hold around his neck, her thighs pressed against his waist as she sighed in contentment. Her flushed cheeks had not dimmed, and retained much of their heat as she held him closer still, her hands playing with the ends of his soft, spiky hair. _I could die happy now_, Sakura intoned internally, a happy swoon from her Inner in firm agreement with her musing as she felt Sasuke shift against her prone figure.

His eyes met with hers when he leaned back in her embrace, and Sakura felt her heart skip a beat when he tilted his head and timidly brought his face closer than it had ever been before. A loud grumbling courtesy of her stomach impeded his progress, and he let slip a breathy, carefree laugh at the sound, his forehead thumping against hers gently as he sighed in exaggerated exasperation, his eyes closed to Sakura's embarrassed blushing. Oh god, could her timing be _any_ worse?

Sasuke pulled away with a smirk in her direction, before he sifted through her pantries, pulling out a frying pan and some eggs, tomato and bacon and cooked up a storm. It shouldn't have surprised Sakura that he was good at cooking; he was good at everything he did. But knowing something and seeing it in practise were two very different things in and of themselves, and so Sakura couldn't help the girly fluttering of her heart as she watched him make breakfast with eloquent efficiency, her toes curling to match the growing smile on her face.

This promised to be a wonderful day. Of that, she was absolutely certain.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>The rest of her day was a blur of sweet gestures and very light ''fooling around.'' What constituted said tomfoolery was stolen pecks in every place but the mouth, only serving to build upon the mounting tension that was filling Sakura to the brim with anticipation. She didn't have high expectations for kissing so early on in their relationship, but the niggling romantic hiding in the recesses of her mind was setting up shop, so eager was she for something a little more substantial.<p>

Sakura shook her head. It was better to pace themselves. _And besides_, Sakura thought with a flare of pink staining her flaming cheeks, _if this is the lead-up, then I can't complain._

It was late, well into the evening, and they were lying on the couch together, Sakura leaning into Sasuke's side whilst his hand rested gently against her shoulder, occasionally trailing his fingers against the soft skin―she had made it a point to bathe and dress after breakfast, because Sasuke was showing the beginnings of his desire to remove her robe and get frisky―her strappy dress gave him access too.

Sometimes he would unconsciously play with the ends of her hair, causing the butterflies in her stomach to flutter frantically into overdrive. He was lethal to her health!

They had spent a lot of time talking about trivial things, Sakura playing with his hands and laughing when he would say something particularly _him_ about how stupid Naruto was and the like, and before long, they had fallen into a companionable silence watching television.

Sakura had, at some point, drifted off in his arms, his warmth radiating softly against hers as she dozed quietly, Sasuke's dark eyes observing her sleeping form with a profound gentleness that belied his usual indifference.

_Only you_, he thought with a smile, _can make me this weak and get away with it_.

He lifted her into his arms, surprised at how light she was, before he made his way down the hallway of her apartment to her bedroom, toeing the door until it was open enough for him to slip through without obtrusion.

He lay her down amidst the messy sheets of her unmade bed, sighing as he settled his own weight alongside her. Glancing at the clock on the bedside table, Sasuke noted that it was two minutes past midnight. Returning his obsidian orbs to the slumbering girl alongside him, the dark haired Uchiha felt an unrelenting compulsion overtake his usual composure. He leaned down with a trace of hesitance halting his movements, but when she sighed contentedly and turned her face towards him, his restraint broke.

Eyes heavily hooded, he pressed a soft, lingering kiss to her parted lips.

''Merry Christmas, Sakura.'' He whispered into the darkness, promising her that that gift would be given to her again in her waking hours for many years to come.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p><strong>Ending Remarks:<strong> _I just really like the idea of Sasuke stealing her first kiss from her okay―_

_There is something unbearably cute about it and ugh. Feels. There will be plenty of conscious kissing action, of course, but it's the little moments like these that make fluff so unbearably perfect and can we just pause and flail over Sasuke doing this in canonverse LOUD SCREAM I AM SO DONE―_

_Ahem. So yes. Fluff fluff fluff. I am happy with the overabundance of fluff. I am literally so excited to get into the more hot and heavy side of their relationship, but I am living for the cuteness right now guys, save me with your reviews―_

_Until tomorrow!_

-x-**R**_i_n-x-


	5. Shared

**Author's Note:** _Thank you all for the wonderful reviews! I greatly appreciate every single one of them. A wonderful reader by the name of _annesthetique_ made a request for some Sasuke ''courting'' action, and since I was thrilled by the prospect of it, I have chosen to use this as my prompt. This chapter is for you, anne-san!_

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><p><em><strong>Melt the Mistletoe<strong>_

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><p><strong>Five:<strong> Shared

_**.**_

_**Characters: Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura**_

_**Categories: Romance, Humour**_

_**Rating: T (for language)**_

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><p>Sasuke was thoroughly frazzled. He had been back in the village all of three days, and they had been a blur of pink, blonde, green and vibrant orange. Naruto and Sakura had occupied every waking moment since his unexpected arrival home, and although it was an endearing sign of their unrelenting affection for him, the change of pace was running him into the ground.<p>

His days before his return had been full of peace and transience, and aside from the occasional scuffle with some of the remaining nukenin lurking on the outskirts of the Hidden Villages, he had enjoyed months of quietude with only himself for company.

So returning to the hustle and bustle of Konohagakure, Christmas festivities in full-swing, was a blast from his unsavoury past. He had never liked the raucous nature of celebratory gatherings, even more so when they were related to such a miserable part of his life. Christmas was all about family.

He no longer had one to speak of, and the memories, fragile and dusty, lay dormant at the back of his mind; a niggling tormentor of unrelenting proportions. Thus the raven haired Uchiha had had legitimate reservations about dropping back to his home village. More than anything, he had been running from his ghosts, attempting to tackle them one at a time from a safe distance.

But now he had thrust himself into the thick of his past's skeletons, and they clung to his limbs and weighed him down with the trauma that had once plagued his soul so deeply that he had nearly lost his mind.

Try as he might, though, he could not help but be reminded of the team mates that he had left behind him; the loud and obnoxious dumbass who had literally smacked some sense back into him, who had believed in him even in his darkest of moments, and saved him from himself, and the pink haired med-nin who had, at some inexplicable point in time, come to mean a great deal to him.

They were the voices of reason that had urged him to turn from his path to Otogakure, turn from his need to find closure from a distance; turn towards them once more. He made his way back, the flicker of promises yet to be kept spurring him forward until he had passed through those familiar wooden gates, nostalgia washing over him as he took in his surroundings once more.

Needless to say, his chakra signal was reported to the authorities within Konoha, for Kakashi, Tsunade, his team mates and a squad of ANBU Operatives were waiting for him when he stepped through the threshold. He was unperturbed, but a little nervous at seeing Naruto and Sakura again.

They had yearned for his arrival for so many years, so he worried that he would not be able to live up to their expectations. But apparently these concerns were all unfounded, for the grins that lit up their jubilant faces said it all. Sasuke had never been a man of many words. The same could be said of his mannerisms, for he had never been one for public displays of affection.

Never the less, when Naruto and Sakura threw their arms around him, laughing through their tears, he could do little more than hold them back; a silent smile creeping onto his lips as he looked down at their heads, buried deeply in his chest.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>In the three days that Sasuke had been back, he had come to notice one thing. When Sakura took her hand in his, a small smile on her face and a blush creeping into her cheeks, his heart fluttered a little faster than it usually did.<p>

He brushed it off as the excitement of being home with the people that meant the most to him, but when she pulled him along through the crowds of excited civilians enjoying the festive stalls that littered the streets around them, her girlish laugh tinkling softly in the air between them, he realised that this was not the case. Before then, Sasuke had never truly considered her as anything more than a dear friend, someone who he would not hesitate to risk his life protecting from danger.

So it came as a surprise to him that his feelings for her were shifting. His chest tightened whenever she smiled up at him, a warmth pooling in his gut as he watched her cheeks darken and her words slip into hasty stutters the longer he gazed into her eyes unflinchingly. Sasuke knew that he was looking at her like he usually did.

But the weight of his observations were what were changing; he was beginning to see _her_ differently.

From what Sasuke understood of beauty, he knew that Sakura was exceptionally so, having had many years to mature and grow into adulthood.

But even so, the youthful prettiness had been shed long ago, and a fragile flower had taken its place; she was nowhere near perfect just yet, but Sasuke could see the signs of her most profound aesthetic expansion beginning to appear in the deepening of her waistline, the flare of her hips, the tenuous curve of her breasts filling out her bust until the depth of her cleavage peaked out suggestively from the tops of her shirts.

Sasuke's heart jumped, startled at the turn his thoughts had taken. When Sakura had turned to him, asking if he was feeling okay, he merely grunted in response, letting the blame for his pinkening cheeks fall upon the wintry air around them.

So what if he thought she was beautiful? There wasn't anything particularly strange about that. After all, she had always been a pretty girl; just annoying to the point of near intolerance at times. Sasuke shook his head. It meant nothing that he found her attractive. Naruto did, as well as many of the men in their village, who all stopped to admire her figure as she waded amidst the throngs of bystanders suffocating the pathway ahead of them.

Somehow sharing an opinion with the rest of them, the insignificant and unworthy, grated against Sasuke's nerves, and he found himself glaring pointedly at the young men that were staring a little too indiscreetly for his tastes at the oblivious pinkette's voluptuous form. They visibly quailed at the intensity of his venomous stare, turning tail and running for the hills when they caught the faintest glimmer of crimson flickering across his obsidian irises.

_Tch. Fucking perverts._

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>Three weeks into his belated return, and Sasuke found himself spending increasing amounts of time with the carefree kunoichi. Much to his surprise, he welcomed her company. Living in the district where his clan used to inhabit was unsettling, and often did he wake from nightmares detailing the events of that ghoulish night dripping with perspiration.<p>

Of course he saw it all through clear eyes now; the tears that Itachi had shed so desperately as he ran from the only person who mattered enough for him to hide them from in the first place, the despair that had swallowed them both whole as they were lied to and deceived by those dearest to them.

It was in the wake of these truths that made the massacre itself so painful to relive, for he had to endure the pain that Itachi had struggled to uphold for so many years alone, and it hurt him like nothing else ever had. Seeing Sakura's sunny smile first thing in the morning helped to alleviate the aftershocks of his nightly interludes with death, and filled him with contentment that had long evaded him on his travels.

Had evaded him his entire life.

_I can get used to this_, he thought with a lingering glance in her direction as she talked his ear off a mile a minute, a discreet smile stealing over his features as he sat alongside her, having invited her into his apartment, with a soft expression on his face; painfully aware of the heat that her bare shoulder radiated against his own.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>Sasuke's gauge on time had slipped a little as he fought to keep up with the festivities unfolding around him. It was Christmas Eve, and he was standing off to the side of Kakashi's office, dark eyes hooded as he observed the commotion around him with bored indifference.<p>

He had never been one for parties, but he knew that his presence was desired on part of his team mates, so the obligation to be present had reinforced his decision to participate; even if that participation was limited to acting as the aloof bystander to the mayhem quickly unfolding around him.

Naruto was blind drunk, stumbling back and forth and singing jovially, arm slung around Inuzuka Kiba and Rock Lee's shoulders as they too took part in his idiocy. Kakashi was standing about a foot away from Sasuke, his own expression exasperated as he brushed one of his hands through his hair, ruffling it roughly whilst he downed the contents of his drink so swiftly that Sasuke didn't even have the chance to blink. There went another chance at seeing the famous ex-copy nin's true face.

Rolling his eyes and shaking his head in mute disbelief, Sasuke returned his watchful gaze to the rowdy group around him. Tsunade was tipping back sake by the barrel full, Shizune and her trusty pig Tonton becoming increasingly flustered the rosier the Sannin's cheeks became.

The remainder of the Rookie Nine (Sasuke noted mildy that there were only eight of them still alive, his eyes lingering on the brunette who had shared Hyuuga Neji as a team mate with Lee; she looked a little pensive, gazing somewhere beyond his sight, and he felt sad for her loss) were in various states of cheer, one of whom the Uchiha was particularly drawn to.

Sakura was, for lack of a better word, stunning. In a knee-length dress the colour of red wine, that hugged her curves suggestively and showed hints of bare flesh in very provocative places, and black stilettos that lengthened her legs significantly, she was a vision. Sasuke couldn't help but swallow, mouth suddenly dry, as he sweeped his gaze over the bared flesh of her neck. Her hair had grown long enough to be curled and swept up into an elegant twist on the top of her head, and the dark diamond in the centre of her forehead was enhanced by the dark brush of eye-shadow that tinted her eyelids.

Her lips were painted a glossy pink, and whenever she smiled, a magnetism that had not been there previously tugged at Sasuke's gut with due force. He wanted to be beside her. That notion was strong within his mind, and several times that evening he had felt that powerful pull that led toward her. He had yet to succumb, but his will was only so strong, and the more he caught her flickering glances in his direction, the more he wanted to part the crowd and take his place alongside her. His patience was rewarding, however, as she eventually found the courage she needed―to which she had gathered from a few cups of liquid courage―to wander over to him.

There was a deep lurching in his stomach as Sakura stopped in front of him, her cheeks tinted with pink as she looked up into his face searchingly, a pouty quality to her lovely features that had tingles shooting up Sasuke's spine in response. Gazing down at her petite frame was inevitable; even with the height that her daringly high heels gave her, she was still much too short to be on par with the Uchiha's imposing stature.

Gazing, however, at the tentative slit that split her v-neck gown down the centre of her cleavage had not been a part of his plan, and once he found his eyes roaming her figure, he could not bring himself to stop.

She was very well endowed, was his first thought, his face carefully neutral as he took in the dips and swells of wanton flesh that had become Haruno Sakura, and he knew then that what he was seeing was not that of his childhood team mate, but of a grown woman.

A woman that he found startlingly attractive; that he was growing fatally attracted _to_.

Thankfully his perusal had happened relatively quickly, for Sakura had not noticed his less than casual once-over.

_In fact_, he thought with growing dread, _I think she's a little trashed..._

His musing was quickly proven to be true, for she stumbled over her own feet, her drink splashing over the front of her dress as she collided with his tense body with the elegance of a three-legged dog.

''Ngh...'' She grunted into the fabric of Sasuke's form-fitting polo-shirt, hands coming up to rest upon his stomach as she regained her bearings.

Or at least attempted to, for as fast as she had fallen into his arms had she passed out, her head lolling as she began to slide down his tall frame, straight into the erogenous zone below his hips.

Panicked and more than a little flustered at the pinkette's rapid descent into uncharted territory, Sasuke grabbed a hold of her wiry arms, noting the steely ripples of muscle that lay under the deceptively thin limbs, before he hauled her into his embrace. Settling her against him and running a terse hand through his hair, Sasuke let out an exasperated sigh.

Was he really entertaining the idea of having feelings for this pink haired lightweight? At the feeling of her arms winding around his back and her cheek nuzzling into the soft material of his shirt, Sasuke felt his heart stutter, his answer given to him in the form of an unconscious embrace.

In a way the analogy was comparable. After all, both _his_ feelings and _her_ embrace had snuck up on him with him being none the wiser, and as he hefted her into the cradle of his arms and carried her back to her apartment, her face pressed intimately against the exposed skin at the hollow of his shoulder, he found that he didn't mind not knowing everything for once.

He just relished having her warmth pressed within his, his mouth smiling for no one else but her as he melted into the darkness of the night.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>''<em>You<em>. What I want is _you_, Sakura.'' Sasuke stated with conviction, exasperation at her guileless naivety chipping away at the last of his patience.

She was a smart girl. Surely even _she_ could grasp at what he was hinting at!

All the time that they had spent together, all the hints that he had been subtly dropping; he carried her home on multiple occasions after she got drunk and passed out. He had subdued the leering glances that the hormonal dirt-bags in this village had been sending her way more times than he could count. He had even entertained her whimsy for holding hands and hugging in public countless times without comment, _and she still didn't get it?_

Was it really so unbelievable that he was admitting to his feelings for her, after everything that had developed between them?

Sakura's apple green eyes were wide and watery as she gazed into his own, her face the picture of shock as she pieced his confession together. He squeezed her hand, determined to get this right. She _had_ to know, was entitled to know, what he _really_ wanted of her, of _them_, before she got their lines crossed once again.

''Be mine.''

Sasuke had to swallow the sudden wave of nervousness that had overcome him as those words became audible to the both of them. More than anything, he feared rejection, even when she had more than enough reason to do so without pause for thought. He had hurt her deeply, after all, and wounds of the heart were the hardest to heal. His own experiences had taught him that lesson ruthlessly.

Embarrassment was creeping up on him, heating up the back of his neck as he fought to keep the terrible blush at bay as he observed Sakura's awed features light up like a Christmas tree.

His near tangible mortification at having to be so upfront about something so personal was completely worth the absolute joy that had overtaken Sakura's expression, and as she reached up to cup his cheek with her soft, mitten-covered hand, all of his doubts about sharing this part of himself with her were erased.

Leaving behind a slate as clean as freshly fallen snow as she fed his soul with the words that he had been waiting to hear, for as long as he could remember the feeling of being loved by another.

''I've been yours from the very beginning, Sasuke-kun.''

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p><strong>Ending Remarks: <strong>_Okay, not so much on the courting side, but I'll get to that eventually. LOL._

_I thought I would tie this POV change into _Confession,_ since it's always nice to have a little context of the events prior to the big event itself. I kept it short because Sasuke is a man of privacy as well as of few words, so I figured that he was best expressed in exactly this manner._

_I always love writing from his perspective, so do look forward to more from his side of their relationship. *^*_

_I hope the lack of fluff is not disappointing. I kind of wanted to venture into Sasuke's head, and it seems I went a little too far, because sweet is kind of a hard bargain to grasp for in there. ;;3;;_

_Anyhow, look forward to the next one! Please leave a review on your way out! It will only take a moment of your time guys! Thanks for stopping by._

_Until tomorrow!_

-x-**R**_i_n-x-


	6. Meeting

**Author's Note:** _Once again, you all have my thanks for taking the time to leave a review. I really do appreciate it guys. (:_

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><p><em><strong>Melt the Mistletoe<strong>_

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><p><strong>Six:<strong> Meeting

_**.**_

_**Characters: Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, Haruno Mebuki, Haruno Kizashi**_

_**Categories: Romance, Humour, Family**_

_**Rating: T (for language)**_

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><p>Sakura shifted from one foot to the other, her nerves steadily mounting as she stood outside of her childhood home, tension leaving her rigid as she swallowed inaudibly. Doomsday had arrived, and she was about ready to slam her head into the ground and bury herself beneath the frozen sleet at her feet.<p>

She could practically _taste_ the impending embarrassment that was surely to be unleashed upon her in the wake of these... less than desirable circumstances. Sakura knew, oh how she knew, what her father was like; on a normal day he came off as unhinged and batshit crazy, living off of her torment like a leech sucking her blood dry. Under the influence? God help her now.

Haruno Kizashi had always had a tendency to run his mouth off when he was inebriated, and it had always been at its worst during the festive season. He could have put the sake-guzzler Tsunade into a coma with the amount he could safely consume before he blacked out; and that was where the trauma began.

Ever heard of the phrase ''brain to mouth filter?'' Yeah, well Kizashi didn't have a filter full-stop, so one can only imagine the kind of mortifying stories, or worse yet, _terrible jokes_ he would concoct under such circumstances.

The pinkette was sure that had he not been her father, and had she not loved him to death, that he would be the literal bane of her existence, and would be the cause of her demise because parenting was the one thing in his life that was actually volatile in practice. He may seem like a feeble bystander upon first impressions, but he was anything but. At the age of four, he had encouraged her to play with the ANBU soldier dogs, who had been trained to react and intercept any and all threats in the most violent ways possible.

''It builds character!'' He had exclaimed to his furious wife Mebuki, all the while throwing his head back and laughing as Sakura wailed over having been rough-housed by said summons, who had had the decency to look shamefaced as they bowed down into the dirt alongside the sobbing toddler. Sakura shuddered at the memory.

Yes, he was a wonderful man. In theory. But you had to dig through _a lot_ of crap before you could find his centre, and she was terrified that her boyfriend would be unable to see past his idiotic exterior. In a lot of ways, Kizashi was Sasuke's complete opposite, and Sakura feared that they wouldn't be able to connect because of this difference in attitude and general state of being. Sasuke was quiet, and as much as he had admittedly changed since his return to Konoha, was still quite the antisocial brooder; her father was buoyancy itself, more suited to the life of a bachelor than that of a married man raising a teenage daughter.

But naturally, Kizashi had had the good cheer to _insist_ that Sakura bring her quote ''aspiring significant other'' unquote to meet them before Christmas broke out into full swing in the Haruno household. It was one of the genuine moments of parenting that had been brought upon by paternal protectiveness, but that only caused Sakura's anxiety to skyrocket even further. What kind of evil was her father scheming, if he was the one inviting the last of the Uchiha Clan to their home?

_Nothing good_, she thought with a sneer. _He's always like this, especially at the mention of Sasuke-kun._ Sakura knew that Kizashi was dubious about Sasuke, for the very essence of his existence had been a cause for heartache for her in the past. He would be a terrible father if Sasuke's indiscretions hadn't bothered him, or influenced the way in which he perceived him. And more than anyone else, Sasuke knew this.

He knew how important it was to prove to her parents that he could take care of her. That his feelings for her were completely sincere, and unshakable. When Sakura turned to look up at him, he was already searching her face for any remnants of doubt. He would find none. Sakura smiled up at him, squeezing his right hand as she turned to face the ominous pathway ahead. Sweat began to gather on her forehead. Sasuke linking their fingers together helped to soothe her racing pulse, as she flashed him a grateful grin in response.

''Are you ready to do this, Sakura?'' Sasuke intoned softly, not a shred of panic or nervousness on his handsome face as he locked gazes with her. Obsidian was reflected off of emerald, and Sakura allowed herself a moment of respite in those dark, endless eyes of his, before she nodded in affirmation.

''Let's get this charade over with, Sasuke-kun.''

And so it was then that Sakura led them towards their collective doom, her heart rate rocketing as the door opened, an impetuously tipsy Kizashi imposing his stature in the very threshold beyond. Although he was a tall man, next to Sasuke, who had grown to intimidating heights, Kizashi seemed frail in comparison; it didn't help that the Uchiha was solidly built from head to toe, making for quite the show of physical and psychological strength. Sakura tensed even further when her father, taken aback in his liqoured up stupor by the sheer mass of man that effectively disrupted his view of the world outside of his home, had to raise his head to lock eyes with her carefully stoic lover.

Cobalt blue clashed with peerless obsidian, and as Sakura stood there like a fish out of water, unsure of how to break the icy wall that had built up between her two most important men, Kizashi opened his mouth to speak. Of course, nothing good came out of it.

''Honey, our daughter is dating a butch cross-dresser!'' Sakura gawked at her father, all colour draining from her face as she felt Sasuke's hand grip hers with enough force to shatter bone.

''Papa!'' She screeched angrily, tears of embarrassment quickly filling her eyes as she glared daggers into the side of his flushed face. He had definitely had one too many today, that was for fucking sure. Kizashi seemed unperturbed by the menacing death stare that Sasuke's narrowed eyes were shooting in his direction, as he merely tilted his head to the side and smiled broadly at the two of them (with a little more malice in his cutting grin when he directed it at the brooding Uchiha.)

''I'm just fucking with you!'' He exclaimed boisterously, before he threw his head back in that signature manner that dictated that a manic laugh would soon follow. Sakura was not disappointed, as he did just that, cackling with childish glee at the murderous looks on his daughter and boyfriend's faces, before he clapped Sasuke on the shoulder; the slight spasm twitching across his face enough to indicate that the gesture had not been gentle.

''Quickly, now, get in here before you both freeze your tits off.'' Sakura had to pump a little chakra into the hand that was joined with Sasuke's in order to keep him from lunging for her father's throat, and the ever observant cage-rattler caught the movement. As was to be expected, he could not help but to voice his tasteless commentary.

''Got him on a short leash, have you baby girl? Good, I like that my princess wears the pants in this relationship. Might teach the pretty boy to man up a little, instead of just gouging holes in the back of my head with his creepy conjunctivitis―I meant _kekkei genkai_.'' Kizashi coughed into the palm of his hand, before smiling in that good-natured way that belied his snarky rudeness.

''Kizashi, where the hell are your manners, you old coot?'' Sakura had never been so relieved to see her mother so cross at her father. Mebuki stepped into the hallway, making short work of slapping her idiotic husband upside the head before she shoved him into the nearest wall.

Sakura had to suppress her smile, but she noted with a tickle of pleasure that Sasuke was openly wearing an amused smirk as he watched the Haruno matriarch beat some sense into her drunkard of a patriarch.

_So that's where she gets it from_, Sasuke thought with a flare of newfound respect for the petite blonde. Mebuki, having dumped Kizashi on the floor and discarded her vehemence with him, made her way towards them, a little starry eyed as she gazed up at the quiet raven haired Uchiha with parted lips. She studied him for a mere moment before a girlish smile stole across her features and instantly made her appear ten years younger; the expression was one he had grown all too accustomed to as a child.

When his mother had taken him, well, anywhere, he would be coddled by women of all denominations; young to old, they would flock around him like moths drawn to the flame, cooing over how beautiful he was. Mebuki wore a similar brand of acceptance on her face. In laymens terms, she was smitten with him.

''Sakura-chan, where on _earth_ did you find this gorgeous young man, and why have you been hiding him for so long?'' Her cheeks a little flushed, Mebuki looked back and forth between the two of them, unsure of who she should greet first.

Sakura giggled at the fire in her mother's eyes as she fixed her unwavering stare on Sasuke's face, and to his credit, he didn't blanch or shy away from her unabashed ogling, even though Sakura could read the tension in his eyes all too clearly. He had never been overly comfortable when people paid him unwanted attention, after all, but he did not want to come off as rude when he was meeting these people for the very first time.

''My goodness, what a catch you are, dear boy!'' Mebuki exclaimed as she circled the two of them in a state of absolute awe, her hands eventually coming out to gently cup the sides of Sasuke's face. They were roughened from the tedium of housework, but there was a softness folded amidst the creases and wrinkles that made Sasuke think unwittingly of his own mother. Would her hands be similar to the touch, had she still been alive?

An unpleasant twist in his gut warned Sasuke to tread no further upon treacherous waters; reminiscing on what he no longer had in this world would only serve to dampen his mood and ruin the first impression he had yet to build between Sakura's parents. And as they were the most important people in her life, he had to be sure to get along with the both of them, no matter how irritating he found her father to be.

''It's a pleasure to meet you, Haruno-san.'' Sasuke stated softly, his voice unyielding and powerful none the less as he bowed his head to her, resting his prosthetic hand over her right hand, which had yet to drop from his cheek. His sooty eyes were hooded, and the natural charisma that had been ingrained into him as a child of the Uchiha main household was exuded without thought.

Sakura knew that he was aware of the effect he had on women―knew it well enough due to the effect he had on her on an every second basis. So when he switched on the charm, she knew that her mother had effectively lost a pointless battle. If she had ever for even a second entertained the prospect of not liking him before then, well she had no control over her fate now. She was hopelessly charmed, and the small but sincere smile that he gave her in that moment completely swept her off her feet.

''Oh my lord, Sakura-chan, you've reeled in a keeper, that's for sure!'' Mebuki swooned with a bright smile in her daughter's direction, before she took Sasuke by the hand and led him into the living area, one hand over her mouth as she checked him out up close without a trace of discretion. Leaving Sakura to deal with the slumped mess that was her festively drunk father.

Rolling her eyes in exasperation, the pink haired medic stomped her way over to him, hoping that the thumping would set off one of his famous hangovers. _At least then he'd be sober, and a little more agreeable_, Sakura mused with a terse grunt, hefting her father into a sitting position against the wall.

She raised her hands with the intent of dispelling the foul substance from his system, only to have them grasped firmly in the palms of her father's. They were coarse from years of hard manual labour, and in another life Sakura knew that they would have been lethal on the battlefield. Kizashi already had the cutting personality to match any foe head on without so much as a flinch, now he just needed the training and the skills to fight.

''You know that I love you, don't you, princess?'' He intoned somberly, surprisingly lucid even after the beating he had taken courtesy of his not so smitten life partner.

''Of course I do. Sometimes I wish you didn't love me _so_ much. Saves me the embarrassment of having to face my boyfriend after this knowing that he hates the shit out of your guts.'' Sakura responded curtly, wrapping her fingers around his and sighing softly in fatigue. This man made her so weary sometimes. Kizashi had the decency to look shamefaced, blue eyes searching her face for some sign of disappointment or anger.

He found none, which made him smile from the heart. He never had liked being the cause of Sakura's embarrassment or discomfiture. It was just the only way he could show her that he loved her without restraint; he didn't care what others thought of him.

As long as this beautiful young woman would tolerate him and his tendency towards bullshit, he was content. ''I know you love this boy, Sakura. Have known it for years now. What I worry about,'' he started softly, so that only she could hear him, ''is whether or not he will be the cause of your heartbreak once again. I remember better than anything the day when Kotetsu and Izumo brought you back home to me.'' Kizashi visibly scowled at the memory, as if that would expunge it from existence.

''You were more broken than I had ever seen you. Not one of my shitty jokes could cheer you up, and no words shared between your mother and I could help to heal your heart.''

Sakura felt her heart clench in her chest as she watched a multitude of emotions flicker across her father's face; anger, wretchedness, despair, hesitance (_to accept him_, Sakura realised with a start. _Hesitance to accept Sasuke-kun._)

''I don't want him to think he can get away with walking all over it like it's a one-stop doormat. You are far too precious to be broken by the likes of him again, Sakura.'' The use of her name, in all seriousness, caused tears to swell behind her eyelids, and she frantically blinked them away. Kizashi cupped her face in his hands, thumbs catching her falling tears and wiping them away into the depths of her skin. His expression was morose, and it became all too clear to Sakura why he was so plastered in the first place. Irrespective of the festive season, and regardless of his love for recreational drinking, Kizashi was anxious about facing the sole cause of her years of longing and heartache.

He did not know how to approach the man who had hurt his daughter so much that it had left lasting scars on her heart and mind for many years after his defection, without hurting Sakura further in the process. She knew he wanted to try; try to see Sasuke for who he was now, rather than focus on the man he had once been, but it was hard. No father would ever want to see their child suffer at the hands of love, and what he feared most of all was Sakura becoming a broken wreck once more should Sasuke's affections not carry any true weight.

Sakura shook her head, resting her forehead against his before speaking through a voice thickened with emotion.

''I know, papa. I know that he hurt me, hurt me in ways that I thought I could never recover from. But he's changed. Before now, Sasuke-kun suffered every waking moment of his life, bearing the burden of a family that had been stolen from him in the most abominable way imaginable.'' He flinched at that, a tug of guilt settling inside of him as he thought of a little boy, lost, distraught and terribly alone in the world, with no blood ties to connect him to love or joy anymore, and suddenly his respect for Sasuke's painstaking efforts of change had grown tenfold.

''Back then I couldn't understand it at all. But when he left, it felt like he had taken half of me away with him; I couldn't function without it, just like I couldn't without him in my life. And yes, there were many times where I cursed him to hell and back as I cried tears that would never be acknowledged. There was even a time when I thought I could set us both free of our torment. But I couldn't go through with it because I loved him. I really love him, papa. Please see that. Try to understand where he has come from.'' Sakura murmured gently, pressing her soothing green chakra into her father's skull so as to remove any final traces of alcohol from his system.

That done, Sakura helped him to his feet, folding her arms around his waist in a fierce hug that caused a swell of joy to fill Kizashi's heart.

''I love him as much as I love you papa. And by all accounts, that means _infinitely.''_

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>''Well now, Sasuke-san. What say you? Is he stubborn to a fault or what?'' Mebuki said with a sigh, a small smile on her face as she leaned against the wall opposite to Sakura and her husband alongside the ever-silent Uchiha. She had all but cornered him into eavesdropping on their conversation the minute they were out of sight, and try as he might to be honest and respectful of their privacy, he couldn't help but feel enlightened at the revelations of the father-daughter pep-talk.<p>

He had known all too well how much he had hurt Sakura in his absence, but he had never expected that pain to have carried on to her family as well.

He had all but forgotten what it was like to have others hurt for one's own suffering, after all, so he had never really spared a second thought to her parents. Guilt bubbled to the surface of his thoughts as he rested his full weight against their blindspot, eyes suddenly weary as he absorbed the seriousness of his crimes against the Haruno family. When a gentle but firm hand squeezed his bicep affectionately, Sasuke turned his gaze upon the small blonde next to him.

Mebuki's smiling eyes spoke volumes, and he knew then that at least one of the two parents had forgiven him.

But it wasn't her that he had to worry about from the start.

After all, father's are especially overprotective and painfully difficult to relate to, and being the quiet man that he was, Sasuke was honestly worried about whether or not he could reconcile with Kizashi before the day was through.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>The day had progressed quite painfully on Sasuke's part. Although he got along exceptionally well with Mebuki (he just had a way with women), it was another matter entirely where Kizashi was concerned. They were like water and oil, two substances that were destined to never meet eye to eye. Mix well they did not. It wasn't for any lack of trying.<p>

Sasuke was polite and responded astutely to small-talk when the situation called for it, but there just wasn't any tack bringing the two men more or less together. So it was with a heavy heart that Sakura excused herself to help her mother in the kitchen to prepare dinner for the four of them, leaving a very tense Sasuke alone with an equally uncomfortable Kizashi. For several excruciating moments, they just sat across from each other, sitting in mirroring _seize_ positions that were growing more uncomfortable by the second.

It was Kizashi who broke the prolonged silence between them, a gruff sigh leaving his lips before he flopped back on his ass, legs sprawled out a little for comfort's sake as he looked up at the banisters overhead.

''A word, if you will.'' He muttered sternly, bringing his gaze back to the eloquently postured Sasuke, who met his eyes with a fixed determination that brought a slight smile to the elder man's features.

''So you're the upstart that broke my darling girl's heart.'' Kizashi quipped sagely, a tint of menace lurking in his tone as he watched the Uchiha heir stiffen in response.

''Looks like I hit a sore spot. Had my daughter not proclaimed her undying love for you, I would have beaten you six ways from fucking Sunday for hurting her so much. I might not be a ninja, but I'm sure you are aware that a father's wrath reigns supreme on the battlefield.''

Sasuke could only bow his head in subservience, a gesture of sincerity that was not overlooked by Kizashi.

''I can tell that you're a proud man, raised by good parents and not without morals. It's a shame about your circumstances,'' Sasuke fought the urge to bite his lip at the mention of his deceased clan members, and listened intently as the crux of Haruno Kizashi's distaste was revealed.

''But I won't tolerate you using that as an excuse to gallavant about and walk all over my daughter's feelings for you whenever you feel it convenient. She's only human, and delicate as china. It took me years to glue the shattered fragments of her heart back together again, and I will not hesitate to remove her from your life should you ever cause her hurt like that again.'' Kizashi's blue eyes flashed with fatherly defiance, daring Sasuke to challenge his authority with his own.

Instead, Sasuke took to bowing down, bangs hanging loosely in front of his face as he responded to Kizashi's threat with as much humility as he could.

''The greatest regret of my life was hurting Sakura in the way that I did. At that time of my life, nothing but vengeance mattered to me. I had nothing else to live for.'' Sasuke slipped down even lower, hands in front of his head as he continued, eyes staring fixedly at the tatami mat beneath his knees. ''But I do now. I live for _her_. I can't imagine my life without her in it. She is my world's greatest joy, and it would mean the world to her, to me, if we could reconcile and learn to get along.''

Sasuke had never been a man of many words, and thus articulating his feelings, especially to his lover's father of all people, was incredibly trying. Never the less, it seemed as if his words had thawed away any lingering resentment in Kizashi's body, for he had visibly relaxed, tension flying away with his resounding laughter as he once again clapped Sasuke on the shoulder; this time, with the care that a father would unleash upon his son.

Fleetingly, Fugaku's face danced across his vision, and Sasuke's chest tightened in response.

''For an uptight pretty boy who could very easily become a cross-dresser and get away with it, you have a way with words. We may still have some things to say to one another, so I think it's best I keep you close for the time being.'' Sasuke scowled at the mention of his ''androgynous'' aesthetic, spurning on Kizashi's teasing commentary even further.

''After all, as the saying goes, always keep your friends close, but your enemies even closer; and you, my boy, are number one on my hit list if you _ever_ try out your moves on my perfect little angel.'' Kizashi's sinister smile was enough to even put Sasuke on edge, as he swallowed perfunctly, expression carefully neutral as Sakura's father began to regale him with tales of castration and death by projectile poisoning should he ever so much as catch a hint of Sasuke's wandering hands on his daughter's virginal body.

He had never been so mortified in his life.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

* * *

><p>Kizashi watched as his daughter left hand in hand with the thoroughly exasperated Uchiha, a small smile creeping, unbidden, onto his face. Mebuki came to a stop alongside him, intertwining their fingers together and leaning into his side as she looked up into his eyes searchingly.<p>

''You like him, don't you honey?'' She was painfully perceptive, _as always_, he thought, with a twitch. But he couldn't deny her claim either.

''To have suffered so clearly and yet to love so profoundly... He's a strong one, that Sasuke. I'll give him credit for that.'' He paused, evidently in thought, before a wicked smirk lifted on his lips, and Mebuki could only sigh at the familiar sight of a man plotting to usurp his daughter's happiness for the sake of his own amusement.

''But seriously, hon, that kid would make for a _scary_ _looking tranny―_did you get _a look_ at _that hair_? He's a chicken's _asshat_! Who'd have thought Sakura was into _beautiful_ men that have _two_ assholes instead of _just the one_?''

This would be a _long_ night for Haruno Mebuki, of that she was absolutely certain.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

* * *

><p>Sakura shivered in the cold, pulling closer to Sasuke's side as he led her down the pathway towards her apartment. Early evening was setting in, the golden rays of dusk deepening into twilight as she adjusted her grip on Sasuke's gloved hand. Puffs of air crystallised around her face, and try as she might, Sakura could not withhold the urge to sneeze.<p>

She did so into the palm of her remaining hand, and Sasuke paused mid-stride to send her a pointed stare. He had offered her his coat and scarf for extra warmth, but she had stubbornly declined, green eyes defiant (_much like her father's_, Sasuke thought with an amused smile, _one of **many** traits that they have in common_) as she locked gazes with him.

Without a moment's thought, he unwound the navy blue scarf from around his neck, wrapping it securely around Sakura's protesting shoulders before he once again took her hand in his, striding forward with a sense of purpose that surprised the pinkette. After she had returned to his side with her mother, laying out the dishes for dinner on the kotatsu and urging the two men to join them, she had noticed that there had been less animosity between them.

They had been talking―well her father had been doing all of that; Sasuke had merely listened, a little paler than he usually was as he met her eyes with a trace of panic in his own―when she had come back into the room, and it was clear to Sakura that whatever had been said between them while she was tacftully out of earshot had done them a world of good. Smiling, she squeezed Sasuke's hand, the expression broadening into a grin as he squeezed back almost unconsciously, his footfalls echoing in harmony with her own.

Sakura's eyes widened when she realised that they had taken a different turn down the winding streets of Konohagakure than the usual one that led back to her place, but Sasuke's stride did not slow at all. He was driven by a force that was beyond her sight, and so she held on with renewed vigor, trailing after him as he took her down one of the paths that led to the outskirts of the village.

Confused, Sakura sidled up to Sasuke's side, intent on questioning him, when he pulled to a sudden halt. Stunned and nearly stumbling over her own feet, Sakura stopped when caught by two sturdy arms, her own pressing intimately into the soft fabric of Sasuke's black polo shirt.

''Thank you, Sasuke-kun.'' Sakura exclaimed with a grateful smile, and he returned it with a gentle one of his own, before his gaze extended its reach to somewhere over her shoulder. The forlorn quality that his countenance had adopted spurned Sakura to turn in the direction that he was facing, and she came face to face with the village cemetery.

Her emerald irises widened significantly as he carefully linked their fingers together and pulled her along, leading her down a path that his feet had trodden upon countless times before. He weaved expertly through thousands upon thousands of grave markers, his body remembering more so than his mind his destination as he came to an eventual stop in front of several affluent gravestones, all of which bore the Uchiha insignia.

And there they were, the esteemed names of the Uchiha clan main househould. _Uchiha Fugaku_―patriarch; leader; loving husband and father. _Uchiha Mikoto_―matriarch; devoted housewife; loving wife and mother. _Uchiha Itachi_―successor to the Uchiha Clan; prodigal son; loving elder brother. A true hero.

The weight of this gesture did not escape Sakura, whose eyes misted over with tears as she watched Sasuke kneel down, placing a tender hand against the names engraved upon the polished stones of his family and smiling from the depths of his heart as he addressed them.

''Otou-san, kaa-san, aniki... I'm sorry for not visiting recently. But don't worry, it's for a good reason. There's someone... that I think you ought to meet. Someone irreplaceable to me. Someone you would be proud to call family.''

He looked up at her then, eyes soft as he held out a hand to her. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she took it, kneeling into the thick layer of snow and brushing her hands over the names of his sleeping family, familiarising herself with them as she opened her mouth in greeting.

Her hand gripping Sasuke's all the while.

''It's a pleasure to meet you all. Finally.''

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p><strong>Ending Remarks: <strong>Note to self―_don't listen to _the GazettE's_** ''Guren''** (my fave band of thirteen precious years, might I add) when you're supposed to be writing humourous stuff. By the time I got to the end, I was bawling buckets, and it was only meant to be a sweet fluff scene to boot oh god―_

_Sorry this was a little late. I got lost on the path of life. Christmas is a busy time, after all._

_I hope you all enjoyed this one! Please leave a review, for the sake of this weepy idiot sitting behind her secondary laptop. ;;3;;_

_Until tomorrow!_

-x-**R**_i_n-x-


	7. Gift

**Author's Note:** _I'm so, so sorry for not updating yesterday! I didn't anticipate getting sick, so naturally, contemplating sitting down and writing something cohesive and worthy of your time was not on the top of my priorities. Sickness aside, here I am with the promised chapter! Thank you all for your reviews. They inspire me. All the ensuing fluff is for you!_

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><p><em><strong>Melt the Mistletoe<strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>Seven:<strong> Gift

_**.**_

_**Characters: Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura**_

_**Categories: Romance**_

_**Rating: K**_

* * *

><p>Sakura awoke to the piercing shrill of her phone ringing. Not entirely the most pleasant way to brave the bitter chill of the morning, and it showed in the extreme curl of displeasure that twisted across her cracked lips. Never the less, Sakura shoved the doona from her warm body, shivering as the cold air seeped into her bones through her pyjamas. Whoever was calling so bloody early had better be bleeding to death or near-comatose, or she would climb through the land-line and make them that way herself.<p>

Shuffling into her fluffy bear slippers, the pinkette made her way down the hallway of her apartment, tugging on her warmest night-robe in the process and sniffling against the frigid air that was currently launching its assault against her senses. In some ways, she really hated the festive season. The snow was great to look at behind a glass wall, but having to endure its mushy chill was more than she could handle on most days.

She had never liked the cold. It was a blatant reminder of the feelings that had taken up residence within her after a certain raven haired Uchiha had effectively defected from her life as she knew it, and as much as she claimed she had moved past it, there were times when the winter wonderland around them served as a niggling reminder of her depression. But these were feelings that only surfaced when she was amidst one of her black moods; it was safe to say that she was pessimistic, but not outright cynical, at this time. Given her untimely awakening, it was to be expected.

Almost stomping when the pitch of her phone's ringing breached an all new decibel, Sakura all but ripped the infernal device from its strategic placement on the wall by her fridge, about to rip a new one out of her thoughtless caller, when a deep, resonant voice crackled through the fragile line between them.

''_Sakura_.'' She stiffened at the sound of her name from that all too familiar mouth, but the smile that broke across her face brightened her terrible mood instantaneously. He always had this effect on her.

''Sasuke-kun! How are you? Is anything the matter?'' Sakura exclaimed chirpily, her green eyes dancing at the unexpected surprise. Talk about a wake-up call. Sasuke had left on his travels once again, having stopped in to check in on her while he was in the area. He was a thoughtful boyfriend, worrying about her state of health and general wellbeing constantly while he was absent from her life.

Monitoring her aside, he derived a genuine amount of pleasure out of seeing her face light up like a newly lit Christmas tree whenever he strode back through their village's gates. It made the many months away from her side bearable, for as much as he needed closure, he also missed her and the rest of their team greatly.

Not that he would ever admit that to the males of their impromptu family.

No way in hell.

Sakura gnawed on her bottom lip, listening intently as Sasuke responded with a curt ''_Nothing really. I just wanted to hear your voice_.'' Inner Sakura swooned at the gentle tenor of his voice as it echoed through the headset, and if she knew any better, Sakura swore she could feel his embarrassed blush carrying through the land-line as well.

It was hard to gauge from his voice alone, but Sakura had come to know his gestures and habitual mannerisms very well in the past eighteen months that he had been courting her for. When he was feeling a little shy, his cheeks would become tinged with a light dusting of pink, and he would avert his gaze elsewhere, as if the movement would take away the sting of his humiliation.

Naturally every sweet nothing that he gave her was sincere and from the heart, but his head was still catching up with the rest of his changed aspects, and thus he was prone to becoming awkward when he was attempting to woo her.

Sakura found it incredibly endearing, and she grew more and more besotted with his natural charisma with every waking moment that passed her by. She couldn't have loved anyone more than she loved him, and as she flopped down onto her couch, burying her smile within the soft folds of the cushions that lay discarded up on it, she couldn't have believed it more.

His scent lingered there, slowly fading in the wake of his weeks of absence, but Sakura did not let it bother her too much. He would return long before his groove on her couch had shifted under her weight, and that thought alone motivated her more than anything else in the world.

''What have you been doing lately, Sasuke-kun? Been anywhere interesting?'' Sakura questioned with great interest, doing her best to extend their time together by whatever means she could. As much as she loved his fables and witty recollections of battles and quaint little towns that had yet to be mapped out in their official data logs, all Sakura really cared about was hearing his voice, soothing and quiet and oh so beautiful to her ears.

''_I arrived in a small village outside of Hoshigakure last night. The innkeeper was kind enough to give me a room, free of charge, in exchange for my services around the place. Apparently there are nukenin too stubborn to return to their villages causing trouble for him, so I was about to head out and scout the area for their whereabouts._'' Sasuke explained tersely, tone carefully bereft of inflection as he went into the nitty-gritty of his recent travels.

Apparently the snowfall had not touched the land leading through to Hoshi, and so the weather was pleasant enough that he could don his usual ninja garb. Sakura smiled at that. She knew Sasuke could weather most situations without so much as a sound resembling complaining, but she was also aware that he liked feeling free to fight should the need arise. Heavy winter attire did not help in overcoming the enemy, after all.

''_I took the opportunity to call you before I leave, since I don't know when I'll be able to gain access to a phone after today._'' It was as clear as day that Sasuke was going to dispatch of the nukenin and then head off to his next destination. A bitter pang tugged at Sakura's heart, but she swallowed it with a smile that was almost crestfallen at the idea of not hearing his voice for a while.

_He has more important things to do than just humour my need to hear from him_, she thought with a derisive sneer. _I should feel blessed that he takes the time at all just to drop by when he's in town._

But even though Sakura believed with all of her heart that she was satisfied with just having him in her life, sometimes the nagging voice in the recesses of her mind would dispute her contentment with a sudden wave of sadness. She missed him terribly, and all the selflessness in her heart could not squash the selfishness that lingered there. She wanted him by her side always.

Logic be damned, she wanted him here, in her living room, lounging on the couch and playing with the ends of her hair while they watched television.

She saw him everywhere she went. He had made an inextricable niche in her comfortable little world, and now her whole universe revolved around his presence. Without him in it, suddenly her world was a little smaller, and a hell of a lot darker.

Sakura shook away her fanciful musings with a pinch to her thigh. There was nothing to gain from her moping over his absence. After all, what mattered most at the end of the day was that he would always come back to her in the end. Always, and without fail.

''_...kura? Sakura, are you still there?_'' Sasuke's voice was still quiet, but tinged with anxiety. She had been awfully silent for a while now, and perhaps, he thought with an unpleasant start, she was hurt in some way.

Before he could become unhinged with worry, however, Sakura perked up, smiling softly at the open concern lacing his tone as she replied without a shred of her inner turmoil touching her voice.

''Yeah, Sasuke-kun, I'm still here. No need to worry.''

A relieved sigh sounded almost imperceptibly on the other end of the line, and Sakura's heart swelled with love at the sound. He really was too sweet for his own good, even if it was over little things like this. Of course, she was the only one that ever saw this affectionate side of him, which only furthered her feelings for him. No one would ever know the depths of Uchiha Sasuke's love until they were the recipient of it.

''_That's good_.'' Sasuke stated simply, but there was an underlying emphasis on those two words that had butterflies churning in Sakura's stomach.

''_Well, I should probably let you go now..._'' Sasuke trailed off, an apologetic nuance to his resonant baritone as he drew to a close their much too short interaction.

Sakura felt a tug deep in her gut, dispelling the butterflies and replacing them with lead. Go figures that she had wasted the precious time on the phone with him lost in thought. She berated herself, digging her fingers into her upper arm until she was sure that angry crescent moons would be left there to bruise starkly against her soft pallor.

_Idiot! Moron! Retard!_

''Ah, sure, Sasuke-kun. I'll let you go kick some rogue shinobi ass.'' She laughed a little, the sound hollow and lacking the usual verdant cheer that was so implicit in her everyday laughter. Sasuke was as observant as ever, picking up on it without really registering that he had done so to begin with. He had come to know her too well this last year and a half, better than he had ever known anyone, and unease prickled unpleasantly beneath his skin.

He never liked making her unhappy. If he could avoid it, he would never leave her side. But the ever-present darkness inside of his heart would sneak up on him without warning, and then his desire to move on, to explore the world he had helped to rebuild alongside Naruto, would resurface with a vengeance. It was in his blood now. He could not deny its calling.

''_Get some sleep, Sakura. I'm sorry I woke you so early_.''

''Don't apologise, Sasuke-kun! You're the only person in the world that I would ever ditch sleep for!'' Sakura exclaimed fervently, the spark back in her voice once more. Sasuke smiled. He really couldn't be more smitten with her than he was in that moment.

Sakura inhaled, readying herself for his goodbye. She would hear from him again through messenger summons every now and again, which would fill the hole in her aching heart for a time.

''_I'll get in touch with you soon, Sakura_.'' Sasuke said, tone gentle.

_Matching the placid expression on his face, no doubt_, Sakura thought with a genuine smile.

''Yeah, I know, Sasuke-kun. Take care of yourself, okay?'' Sakura murmurmed softly, resting her cheek on her left forearm, which was crossed over the top of one of the colourful cushions that adorned the couch so vibrantly.

''_Hn_.'' Sasuke returned just as softly, before he paused, as if in thought. It was silent for a while, before Sakura sucked up the courage to bid him adieu. She opened her mouth, intending to say goodbye, but Sasuke beat her to the punch with something that she had never, in her life, anticipated to come from his mouth.

''_Rest well, Sakura. I love you._''

Sakura's mouth fell open, flabbergasted from his sudden and sincere confession. They were the three words that every girl dreamed of hearing from their lover, and the pink haired medic was finding it hard to believe that he had just said them with such casual ease that for a moment she honestly believed that she had misheard him.

But before she had the chance to respond to his last words, the line went dead. Go figure that he would hang up before his embarrassment could be registered by the furiously blushing pinkette.

Sakura blinked; once, twice, before she rolled onto her back, pillow clenched in a vice grip as she squealed into it with as much volume as her excited lungs could bear to muster.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>Sakura felt his chakra signal long before he had sidled up to her doorway. It had been six months since she had last seen him up close, and her heart was pounding behind her ribcage with enough force to shatter through the hard bone. He had kept in contact with her, infrequently for her own torture, through letters alone, and she was desperate to hear that wonderful voice of his once more.<p>

She wanted to see him desperately; fold him up in her arms and never let him go again. Sakura bolted down the stairs of her apartment, hitting ground level with a loud _'thump!'_ from the force of her landing. Without pausing for breath, the pinkette darted towards the rattling doorknob, which unlocked with a definitive _'click!'_

And on the other side of that wooden barricade stood her handsome Uchiha lover, decked in thick winter garb and clutching the spare key to her apartment in his gloved hand. His dark eyes were as expressive as always, but she didn't have the chance to look for very long, because she had all but barrelled into his arms, lithe legs wrapped firmly around his waist as she pressed an anxious kiss to his open mouth; which had apparently fallen open in surprise at her impulsive embrace.

He didn't seem to mind her overzealous attack, however, for he merely smiled against her lips, tilting his head to the side so he could receive her frantic kisses with fervent ones of his own. Sakura's stomach dropped into her womb when Sasuke's large hands came to rest upon her bottom, holding her closer and supporting her weight as she wrapped her hands around his neck and played with the ends of his spiky hair.

It had grown longer, and under the weight of it, gravity had decided to do its job, leaving it a little flatter than it usually was. Sakura didn't mind it in the least bit, toying with the soft locks whilst she made short work of getting them both flustered.

Pulling apart for air, Sakura gazed down at him, cheeks heavily flushed under his hooded gaze as she smiled a little shyly at his amused expression.

''Hi.'' Sakura stated dumbly, the coyness lost in favour of embarrassment as she pressed her forehead against his. Sasuke chuckled, the sound warm and sending pleasant shivers down her spine.

''Hi.'' He replied brusquely, his mirth clear in the sparkling obsidian of his irises as he looked up at her with a quirked eyebrow and lips that trembled with a smile.

Sakura bit her slightly puffy lip at the sight of his sweet expression. He was dangerous to her heart, without a doubt. Sasuke shifted her weight in his arms, readjusting his hold on her rear before he stepped in through the threshold of her apartment, kicking the door to a close behind him.

''I missed you.'' Sakura continued, her earlier zest expressed through shy glances from beneath softly fluttering eyelids.

Sasuke hummed in acquiesance, sooty eyelashes brushing against the hollows of his cheeks as he levelled her with a stare so intense that Sakura began to squirm against him. He smirked then, one hand scooping her up against his torso whilst the remaining one―the one made of flesh, bone and warmth―came up to brush the stray strands of hair from Sakura's flushed cheeks.

''I missed you too.''

It was simple, but the words filled her to the very brim with an ocean of love that could not be expressed through words alone, so Sakura merely buried her face in his neck, pressing a kiss against the sweet spot behind his ear and winding her fingers through his hair in the process.

And they were content, in that moment of pure decadence, to remain like that―in each others arms, feeding off of each other's warmth and becoming reacquainted with the feelings that had yet to be expressed.

''Ne, Sasuke-kun?''

''Hm?''

''I love you too.''

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p><strong>Ending Remarks:<strong>_ I JUST ADORE SASUKE-KUN SO MUCH, AND HIM SAYING I LOVE YOU IS THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY EXISTENCE AS I KNOW IT― /loud flailing/_

_I hope it was worth the wait guys! Please leave a review! I would definitely love to hear from you all. (:_

_Until tomorrow!_

-x-**R** _i_ n-x-


	8. Couch

**Author's Note:** _You have my deepest gratitude for all of your lovely reviews. I figured that I would reward you all (who am I kidding, I'm definitely the one who derives the most pleasure out of my convoluted little plot bunnies) with some steamy fluff, since you've been tolerating my whimsy for cuteness up until now. C;_

**Additional Note: Listen to the first 2 minutes 22 seconds of **Kajiura Yuki's** ''**_In Memory of_ _You_**'****' when you read the fluff! (;**

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><p><em><strong>Melt the Mistletoe<strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>Eight:<strong> Couch

_**.**_

_**Characters: Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto**_

_**Categories: Romance, Humour (twisted, no doubt), Friendship**_

_**Rating: T+ (for some heavy funtime)**_

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><p>Sakura had always hated her couch. It was barely what one could call stylish, with the inbuilt cushions sagging here and there from years of mistreatment and fraying edges of tartan fabric that peeled away to reveal the yellowing foam within its tattered exoskeleton. And as a settee, it barely lived up to its proposed function; whenever Naruto and Sasuke paid her a visit, they had to be especially careful about how they sat down on it, for under their weight the springs creaked treachorously, groaning in protest as the pair shifted awkwardly in an attempt to establish some kind of comfort on the potent death-trap.<p>

All in all it was horrible, both an eyesore and an occupational safety hazard, but Sakura didn't have the heart or the money to replace it. After all, it had been left to her by one of her elderly patients at the hospital; an old woman who had valued that atrocious waste of space more than anything in the world, and wanted to give it, and all of its memories, to a reliable person. And who was more responsible and caring than Haruno Sakura?

''That couch means everything to me,'' the woman had whispered hoarsely to the pinkette, her brown eyes bright amidst the taut and sagging wrinkles that were nearly nonexistent against the stretch of her frail bones. She looked like a skeleton, and her illness had been the cause of her rapid descent into decay. Never the less, she had never been more alive than in that moment, regaling Sakura with the adventures that that couch had taken with her when her husband had still been alive.

''Satoshi, god rest his soul, scrounged up every last penny he had saved up to buy us this couch, and for years our home consisted of just that. We were scraping through on virtually nothing, pennyless most days, but we were happy. That couch saw us through the hard times, and good old reliable needs someone who can see its true value. Someone who can understand the significance of memories and cherish them in my place.'' She had stated sagely, a gentle gleam in her eyes as she took Sakura's hand in hers. She had died not a night later, a contented smile on her face in knowing that her legacy would live on.

Being the kind hearted soul that she was, naturally Sakura couldn't bear to break her unspoken promise with the wonderful woman she had come to think of as a great friend, and thus took her couch amidst the chaos of moving into her apartment, not realising what state it was in until she actually unloaded it into her place. Naruto had gawked openly at it, for once at a complete loss of words while Sasuke merely stared, deadpan and completely unreadable to both parties opposite him.

''Sakura-chan, have you checked it for racoons? 'Cause that couch looks like it went one too many rounds with a bunch of horny, highly destructive ferrets.'' Naruto exclaimed with nothing short of horror touching his expression, even though he sounded as if he was holding back his snorts of uncouth laughter behind the facade.

Surprisingly, it was Sasuke who chuckled at the blonde's rude jibe, disguising it with a well-timed cough into his hand when Sakura's infuriated gaze settled disbelievingly on him. Both men tried―emphasis on the _tried_―to don neutral expressions when Sakura raised her eyebrow in challenge, but it became increasingly difficult when, as if on cue, a family of rats came burrowing out of the old lounge.

Sakura's eye twitched in aggravation, watching as the sewer-dwellers scurried out of the open door of her apartment, disappearing down the landing. And as if the spell had been broken, Naruto burst into a fit of raucous laughter that Sasuke couldn't help sharing with him.

''_GAH_! Why do I even bother with the two of you?'' Sakura threw her hands up in the air, shaking her head sharply as she about-faced in the opposite direction. Honestly, men and their emotional redundancy!

''Sorry, sorry, Sakura-chan! It's just―are you serious? I mean, I know it meant a lot to that obaa-chan that you keep it and all, but that doesn't mean that you have to _use_ it! Put it into storage or something, and get Kakashi-sensei to buy you one that won't fall apart the next time you sit on it.'' Naruto quipped with a good-natured grin, always happy to force the expenditure onto their cheapskate of a sensei-turned-Rokudaime.

''That isn't the point, you jackass!'' Sakura growled angrily, turning her vehement glare onto the now quailing Naruto, who was using Sasuke as a shield from her mounting wrath.

''Mitsuki-san cherished this couch with her whole heart! It was the only relic that she had of her dead lover, the one thing that tied them together even after he had left her behind, and I will be damned if I don't respect her love for her husband! She trusted me with her―with _their_―memories, and I don't know about you, but that is a huge deal to me.'' Sakura continued, raising her hands and rubbing her temples roughly in agitation in the process.

''When you love someone, _truly_ love them, you value everything about their existence, no matter how decrepit it has become over time. That's just another sign of love ingrained into material object and desire years after its disuse.'' The pinkette elaborated softly, her green eyes forlorn as she gazed at the final remnant that her friend Mitsuki had left behind. Naruto and Sasuke had the decency to look a little shamefaced, reevaluating the situation before turning to face her once more.

''My bad, Sakura-chan. I never thought of it like that. But y'know, it ain't too shabby, when you put it like that! To have the privilege to be the keeper for obaa-chan's precious memories is really neat.'' Naruto said with a smile, hands folded behind his head as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, locking affectionate gazes with the now smiling pinkette.

''You never think, dobe. That's why it didn't occur to you.'' Sasuke muttered with a smirk in the blonde's direction, an indignant scowl quickly replacing Naruto's jubilant grin.

''Shut it, you rat-faced bastard! No one asked you!''

''Is that the extent of the famous Uzumaki Naruto's stunted vocabulary? I'm shocked.'' Sasuke simpered with a look of pure amusement etched into the handsome lines of his face as Naruto rose to his baiting like an angry parrot.

''Fuck you, teme! I don't need a thesaurus in my head to beat the shit outta you, 'tebayo!'' He squawked―yes, _squawked_―irritably, Sasuke merely shrugging off his commentary like oil over water as he allowed his focus to shift back to the giggling woman across from them.

''It's nice to see that things haven't changed between the two of you.'' Sakura exclaimed between her laughter, eyes alight with mirth as she looked between the tall men with all the adoration that she could muster. Naruto raised a brow, face the picture of surprise before he locked gazes with Sasuke and grinned like he never had before, azure orbs glistening with a radiance that came about whenever in the presence of his best friend.

''Yeah, well, I guess it wouldn't be any fun if teme wasn't around to keep me on my toes.'' Naruto said with an exuberance that instantly cleared the air of any remaining hostility between the three, and they all smiled at the sincerity in the blonde's tone.

''As nice is it is just standing around here, doing nothing, we have a job to do.'' Sasuke stated simply, his dark eyes lingering on the petite rosette's form a little longer than intended before he all but dragged a spluttering Naruto by his collar outside, intent on gathering the rest of Sakura's belongings before the chilly autumn air melted into the frigidity that came with darkness.

Sakura smiled softly at the broad stretch of his back as it strode purposefully toward the pile of boxes scattered across the asphalt of her gravel runway. It was so wonderful to have him back in their lives―_her_ life―and the fact that he was so motivated to be involved in their lives as much as humanly possible moved her heart in ways that she couldn't begin to understand.

There was this unspoken kind of tension steadily building between her and Sasuke, a tension that she had not foreseen upon his unexpected return. It hadn't been apparent, at first. At least, not while she was in the present company of both of her team mates. But as the months had rolled on, their walls had come down, little by little, until the thin line between friendship and something more had become convoluted.

Even Naruto had begun to notice the imperceptible nuances indicating a shift of dynamic between the two of them, and he had had the tact to be around them less and less in order for them to figure out what the exact nature of their relationship was, and where it was heading.

Sakura was grateful for his consideration, but cursed him and his surprising astuteness. Her life was made vastly more difficult when her blonde best friend had more insight into the inner thoughts of her love than she did, and half the time she wished that she could step into his shoes for a time, just to get a handle on how Sasuke perceived her.

Even so, the nature of his presence was purely innocent; all Sakura had wanted to achieve was a place to call her own, and moving in by herself, on top of having shifts at the hospital to work around, was not ideal. So by effectively roping in her team mates, Sakura was enabled a little more room to breathe.

But the more she tried to convince herself that watching Sasuke's muscles flex as he hefted box after box over his shoulders was only an added bonus, the more flustered she became. She loved this man with every fibre of her being, so it was really very hard not to ogle when sweat slipped down his chin and trailed down his exposed throat into the depths beyond the hemline of his shirt.

Sakura swallowed, averting her gaze as she began moving the furniture already in the house to her liking, following the layout inside her mind to the letter as each element fell perfectly into place. Satisfied, Sakura brushed off her hands, sitting on the arm of the decaying couch and contenting herself with the sight of Naruto and Sasuke bickering over who was carrying in the box of medical textbooks (which weighed a tonne, easily.)

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>Sakura's resentment of the couch became a moot point the moment Sasuke leaned into her side and kissed her for the first time. Their relationship had been kick-started from many moments shared there, Naruto squeezing in on the side opposite of Sakura as they gathered for their routine get-together, which usually composed of terrible horror movie nights or worse yet, tv soaps.<p>

The minute an add for the late and not so great Jiraiya's _Icha Icha Tactics_ flickered onto the screen, Sasuke would tactfully switch the channel, Naruto whining over not being allowed to watch one of the few reminders of his perverted godfather's living legacy in action.

''That shit is derivative and asinine.'' Was all Sasuke had said, and Sakura had been quick to agree, her eyes narrowing at Naruto's crestfallen expression. All he wanted to do was revel in the collective discomfort of his two team mates, after all; who had only recently―at that point in time―begun dating.

He knew that the mention of sex of any kind in the presence of Sasuke, who was indifferent to physical intimacy and practiced abstinence like no one he had ever known before, and Sakura, who had been in love with Sasuke for so many years now that the idea of intimacy was terrifying and exhilarating, would test the waters of their relationship indefinitely.

Being the shit-stirrer that he was, Naruto couldn't possibly contain himself in that regard.

So he made it a painful point to interfere as much as he could in the way in which the two regarded one another, building the tension between them to the point of bursting apart. It was only natural that eventually one of them would work up the gusto to cross the threshold between casual and serious, but it came as a genuine shock to Sakura that it had been Sasuke who had initiated the intimate contact.

Considering his aversion to PDA, Sakura just assumed that she would have to instigate their first kiss sometime in the near future.

Being proven pleasantly wrong had never been better, and as the raven haired Uchiha tipped her head back so that he had better leverage over her mouth, Sakura silently thanked Naruto for being a meddlesome knucklehead.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>Sakura was entertaining Sasuke for the evening, and the pinkette couldn't have been more pleased for it. She hadn't seen him for several weeks, as he had been deployed on a diplomatic mission in Sunagakure with Naruto, Sai and Yamato-taichou, leaving Sakura a frazzled mess whilst she prepared her plans for Christmas with renewed vigor. She knew that Sasuke had never really enjoyed the festive season, so she was making it a point to tone down the bubbling excitement that she always felt when Christmas was just around the corner in favour of simply relishing in his company.<p>

When he had arrived on her doorstep, hands in his pockets and a transient smile on his face, Sakura had to catch her breath. A black leather duster with fur trimmings around the neck and hemline caressed the broad stretch of his shoulders, fastened with an array of silver-plated buttons that glittered in the warm glow that her lamps emitted. A navy blue scarf was pulled around his throat, tucked in at the back and falling in a neat fold over the front of his jacket, stopping just above his breastbone. Sakura could make out his boots up until the ankle, and the buckle-straps glinted strongly when he stepped up onto the landing of her hallway.

Closing the door behind himself, Sasuke bent down to Sakura's height, pressing a leisurely kiss to her temple as he made quick work of removing his coat, shrugging it from his arms and hanging it up on the wall-hanger he had installed for the pinkette just after she had moved in. Sakura smiled fondly at the memory. Reaching out, she tugged insistently on the hem of his black polo shirt, which was surprisingly thin given the weather. Never the less, it hugged the very contours of his built figure, and the pink haired medic had to suppress her near moan of approval at the sight of his muscles rippling with every breath he took.

Sasuke noted with a smug smirk that Sakura was flustered by his incredibly casual attire, considering the fact that it was below minus zero outside, and when he tilted his head to observe her observing him, he found that he was quite pleased with her abashed perusal. The male in him was proud that he could elicit such a strong reaction by merely wearing something a little more form-fitting than he usually did, and he made a mental note to do so more often, if this was the reaction Sakura had to his sinful appeal.

He reached out to her then, resting his right hand against her cheek as he stared into her eyes intently, searching for something beyond both of their grasps. Sakura raised her own hands to meet his, her left cradling his palm to her face whilst her right wrapped lovingly around his wrist, soft fingers tickling the sliver of flesh that his long sleeves left exposed to her fleeting touch. She leaned into his warmth for a time, eyes blissfully closed as she felt the gentle thumping of his pulse beneath her trained fingertips.

Sasuke felt his expression soften from its amused smirking, and he inhaled deeply, her sweet scent tickling his senses as he readjusted to her presence. It had been far too long since they had last seen each other. Sakura's eyes fluttered open when she felt him shift, and before she knew it, Sasuke's remaining arm was pulling her into his embrace, holding her firmly to his chest as he ran his fingers across her cheek and into the depths of her rosy hair. She smiled into the dark fabric of his shirt, a blush rising heatedly on the arched planes of her cheekbones and spreading like liquid fire across the expanse of her face.

Nearly two years of affection on his part, and she still wasn't used to his tender touch. _I don't think I'll ever get used to it_, she thought in time with her beating heart, which had begun to race the moment he had walked through her front door.

Sasuke's chin rested firmly on the crest of her head, his eyes closed to the light as he absorbed her warmth into his greedy body. He had been so very tired upon his return to Konoha, but as he trudged through the layers of frosty snow and saw the warm lights of her home glittering in the darkness, that fatigue gave way to a mounting desire to see Sakura's smiling face, to hold her close, to be near her.

And all the time he had been away had been worth it, for indulging in the simple pleasure of her warmth was more than he could have ever asked for at the end of a long period of separation. Sakura raised her gaze, bumping gently against his chin as she did so, and he chuckled at her haste to confirm that he really was there, with her.

His dark eyes bore into hers with an intensity that had her insides squirming girlishly in response, and as he leaned down to brush their noses together, Sakura had to stifle her surprised gasp. The heat that sparked between them in that single moment of decadence generated a desire to be closer, much closer, and neither could gravitate away from that growing sense of yearning.

Sakura's eyes fluttered drowsily the closer his face came, until their weight became too much of a burden to maintain, and she let them fall to a stuttering close; Sasuke's warmth engulfed her then, his lips searing hotly over hers as he claimed her mouth in a kiss that melted away any resistance that Sakura may have put up to his attentions. Her lips parted in a gasp as Sasuke ran his hands up her sides, his feet moving of their own accord until he had led her to the couch that she had hated for so long in silence.

Sakura broke apart from their intense lip-lock when she felt the backs of her legs smacking into the arm of her dishevelled lounge, and she was quick to correct her posture, walking around the barricade with Sasuke's hand in hers and leading them both to the ragged cushions. She sunk into the old foam, her hand tugging Sasuke down insistently in the process; he smirked at her desperation, settling in alongside her before his calloused hand slipped into the silky threads of her hair and yanked her forward by the base of her skull.

Sakura pressed her hands against the taut stretch of pectoral muscle that made up the refined ridges of Sasuke's upper chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as her lips found his, her heart pounding frantically like a hummingbird caged in her chest cavity. Sasuke parted her moving mouth with a swift flick of his tongue against her top lip, an amused grunt huffing from his open mouth as she submitted to his will without hesitation, her orifice proffered and inviting as he took a tentative dip into the wet heat beyond.

Tongue and teeth fought for dominance, and Sakura's tummy churned in nervous anticipation as Sasuke's prosthetic hand trailed up and down the creamy thigh that her dress left exposed to his wandering appendages. Although he could not feel her skin or the heat that radiated off of it, Sasuke could still absorb the jittery vibrations that her shaking limbs omitted through the movable false limb, and the satisfaction that filled him, having reduced her to a quivering mess with only a kiss, was unparalleled.

When Sakura felt his tongue slip into her mouth, she had to fight the urge to moan aloud―but when he sucked hers into his mouth with an artful twirl and grazed his beautiful white teeth against it, her vision went hazy and a deep throb surged into the depths of her groin. Panting, the pinkette pulled away, desperately gasping for air as Sasuke pressed toe-curling kisses against her cheek and jaw, leaving a hot trail of wet, open-mouthed kisses against her flushed skin as he made a beeline for her thumping pulse.

Sakura's right leg shifted from its dangling position alongside the couch, her inner thigh brushing against Sasuke's hip as he hefted it over his own leg. Leaning forward, he allowed gravity to take over; forcing Sakura back under the tantalisingly slow tease that was her lover lowering her back against the multi-coloured cushions on her settee.

His right arm was propped beneath Sakura's head, elbow folded enough to give Sasuke some much needed leverage as he resumed his assault on her exposed neck, teeth nipping at the ivory flesh and tongue leaping out to soothe the sting.

He ran his remaining hand down her right leg, raising her leg so that it rested against the small of his back, before he slid it up her thigh, hand coming to gently cup the curved swell of her hip. Sakura moaned deeply, the sound resonating in the back of her throat as she weaved her fingers through his hair, tugging him as close as she could to her trembling body.

The hairs on her arms prickled at the sensations charging through her like electricity, and Sakura idly wondered if Sasuke's lightning elemental chakra had something to do with it. She felt as if her whole body was alight in tremendous flames, her core melting into sensate jitters as she rocked her hips instinctively against his―Sasuke meeting her with slow thrusts of his own.

He groaned when Sakura tugged on his hair, and Sasuke abandoned his attentive ministrations on her bruised throat in light of his desire to kiss her once more. He did so, slanting his mouth over hers and claiming her with a possessiveness that Sakura had never experienced before.

His dominance over her writhing figure was driving her to the very brink of insanity, and as his left hand slipped underneath the folds of her dress, burning a searing path up her toned stomach to her covered breasts, Sakura felt her whole world explode with a painful clarity that had her seeing stars.

Nope. She didn't hate the couch anymore.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p><strong>Ending Remarks:<strong> _Well aren't I a fucking tease? I bet you hate me now. XD_

_It's been a while since I wrote any kind of intimate scene, especially to such implicit detail, so please excuse me while I go fan myself into a sexual coma―_

_I am looking forward to more hot and heavy kiss scenes, but let us gradually work our way into Smutorama Land guys. C;_

_Just think of this as a taster for what deliciousness is in store (mind you that'll be a while from now LOL, I don't have my mojo for writing decent lemons back just yet)― _

_¬/^/¬_

_Please leave me a review, and tell me how much you hate me for the ending. I dare you. ;)_

_Until tomorrow!_

-x-**R** _i_ n-x-


	9. Mistletoe

**Author's Note:** _As usual, I give all of my gratitude to those of you who left me a review. I really do appreciate every word of feedback that I receive._

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><p><strong><em>Melt the Mistletoe<em>**

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><p><strong>Nine:<strong> Mistletoe  
>(It was inevitable LOL)<p>

**_._**

**_Characters: Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, Team 7; with miscellaneous appearances from the much-loved side-cast._**

**_Categories: Romance, Friendship, Family, Humour_**

**_Rating: T_**

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><p>''Come on guys, why so serious? It's just a kiss for god's sake!'' The boisterous cat-call of one Uzumaki Naruto cut through the festive cheer of the Rokudaime's office, which had been refurbished especially to host the annual Christmas party that the political echelon within the village threw for their shinobi forces. Up until that moment, the raucous din within the expansive hall had drowned out most idle chatter, but the shattering quality that made up Naruto's gravelly baritone had drawn quite the crowd of curious onlookers.<p>

And at the centre of this absolutely mortifying proclamation, with cheeks growing increasingly red under the brightened hue of the fairy lights, was Haruno Sakura; who was currently shifting under the weight of her fellow shibobis' heady stares and spitting venom from her narrowed emerald irises at the cause of her discomfort.

_I should have known that that fucking moron would orchestrate something so... so **juvenile**!_ Sakura screamed internally, her heart in her throat as she peered up at the brooding male standing next to her. To his credit, Sasuke was tolerating all of the cloying attention with a grain of salt, the only indication of his annoyance shown in the set of his shoulders, which were positively rigid.

The pink haired med-nin knew better than anyone else that the raven haired Uchiha hated being the centre of attention. But what he hated more so than even that was Naruto broadcasting this fact without a care in the world; why else would he have so boldly captured the heightening interest of the steadily increasing masses with such a devious ploy?

''Shut the fuck up, _Naruto_!'' Sakura spat vehemently, face twisted with rage as she curled her fingers into a taut fist that tremoured with the impulse to send him flying into the next world.

''I can't believe you would be so fucking _stupid_!'' She hissed as an afterthought, her countenance the picture of divine retribution as she cracked her neck, readying herself for a bronto beatdown with her jackass of a team mate. Naruto paled a little, as if only then realising the extent of his folly, his hands coming up to pacify the enraged pinkette.

He shifted his weight behind Sai, who tactfully slipped away into the growing bystanders with a casual_ ''It was nice knowing you, Dickless''_ carrying to the hyperactive blonde's ears. Panic flickered through his blue eyes as he stared into the face of death itself.

_And here I was thinking that we were all in this **together**_, Naruto thought with a decisive sneer in the indifferent artist's direction. He was standing off to the side of the room, a flirtatious Ino riveting his attentions elsewhere, leaving the blonde to contend with his infuriated female friend. It had been a joint effort of the remaining members of the Konoha Twelve, that had overseen the plan's coming into frutition with much glee and anticipation, to see that Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura announce their affection for one another on a global scale. And what better way than to _force_ the situation upon them?

''But how on earth would we ever manage such a feat? Especially since this is _Sasuke_ we're talking about here, the resident antisocial recluse of our little group!'' Ino had exclaimed with a pointed look in Naruto's direction.

''Never mind Sakura; I'm sure she'd _love_ the show of PDA! But as it stands, there is _no way_ in this foreseeable future or the next that _Uchiha fucking Sasuke_ would _ever_ concede to _kissing_ in public, no matter how cuddly he is out of sight!'' She continued adamantly, pacing the floor of Naruto's apartment with a scowl on her pretty lips.

''Well since it's Christmas, why not just strategically place some mistletoe here and there, and have them go at it?'' Kiba suggested with a grin, dark eyes glinting with devious intent as he pointed up at the ceiling overhead with a waggling finger; for extra effect, he pouted out his lips, enunciating his final words with exaggerated smooching sound effects, summoning hoots of laughter from the slightly inebriated ninja around them. Only Shino and Sai remained silent, aloof and indifferent as ever.

''That could work...'' Naruto trailed off with a smile, deep in thought as he stood from his spot next to the flustered Hyuuga heiress, his face drawn into his musings as he thought over the implications of their little prank.

''N-Naruto-kun...'' Hinata started with a nearly imperceptible stutter that drew everyone's attention to her timid frame. She had long since grown out of her shyness with her bombastic boyfriend, so the fact that she had slipped into a habit of old meant that she was nervous. He turned to face her with an adoring smile, and her heart swelled in her chest at the sight.

''I don't think this is a g-good idea. I mean, w-what if you only upset them by doing this?'' Hinata continued straightforwardly, her pale lavender irises glowing softly in the lights adorning Naruto's Christmas tree. ''Sasuke-san and Sakura-chan are very private people. It seems wrong to force them into doing this, and more likely than not, they'll be mad that you tried to make them.''

Naruto paused, listening to his voice of reason as she sat there, delicate and oh so sweet, looking up at him with genuine concern for his two best friends, before he grinned in that diabolical way that told everyone in the room that he was up for making mischief.

_Just like the good old days_, he thought with a smirk, bronzed complexion diluted by the effervescent glittering of fairy lights dancing over his complexion. Hinata swallowed inaudibly, a curl of dread settling into her gut as she recognised his intent with painful clarity.

''Oh I _know_ they'll be pissed. That's _why_ I wanna do it! It shows the rest of us how much they _really_ mean to each other, after all; if they can either suck it up and just _do it_, or if they get all shitty and defensive with me! Seriously, they need to start showing the rest of the world that they don't care who sees them when they get all loved up and stupid on each other, before their relationship just squanders away into nothingness!'' Naruto raved enthusiastically, throwing his trademark thumbs up in Hinata's direction for extra measure as his gaze swooped extravagantly over his surroundings.

''And that thing with teme being emotionally constipated is getting to be a joke! Not being able to hold Sakura-chan's hand when he's hanging around with just me and Sai is fucking ridiculous! Poor Sakura-chan doesn't know what she's missing out on!'' Naruto tacked on persistently, his lips turning into a pout as he surveyed his company with twinkling cerulean orbs.

''That is why I need _your_ help, my friends. If for nothing else, join me in my cause of making teme squirm in his ridiculosly huge boots!'' He cackled then, loud and eerily reminiscent of Ero-sennin, hands spread out as his drunken team mates hollered in the affirmative; two sets of dark eyes watching the scene with blatant disinterest.

And thus a group of mischief-making morons had drunkenly decided to string up mistletoe to the banisters in Kakashi's office; the elder man scratching his head in mute fascination as the tipsy, giggling fools reiterated it would be even funnier if the _whole_ ceiling was buried beneath Pucker-up Plants. Not knowing how to handle the situation at hand, Kakashi had merely shrugged it off, pulling out his famously tattered copy of _Icha Icha Paradise_ from the top draw of his filing cabinet and settling down behind his mahogony desk without a glance at them henceforth.

Since the newly built office was incredibly large, nobody would even _think_ to look up the banisters overhead, and with plenty of prismatic distractions scattered about the room, nobody would suspect them of orchestrating such magnificent tomfoolery.

And they really hadn't.

Which was why, when Naruto had all but pranced over to the two of them with a smile of Cheshire proportions lighting up his sun-kissed face, eyes glittering with amusement as he pointed up to the offending branches without a hint of remorse, Sakura and Sasuke had been so utterly flabbergasted. For the most part Sakura was shocked. It was an opportunity to finally announce to the shinobi world that this gorgeous man was _hers_, and hers alone, but then her heart sank with the realisation that Sasuke would never condone such foolishness, much less entertain the whimsy.

And with that knowledge came embarrassed anger. She knew that Naruto had only her best intentions at heart, but never the less, he had rubbed salt into the metaphorical wound that had blossomed inside her chest unwittingly. The proud Uchiha man, who had a strong aversion to public displays of affection on any normal day, would _never_ tolerate doing so in the presence of such an expansive group of strangers. It would be too intimate to show such weakness in front of them. She knew this with a profoundness that unsettled her deeply.

So as she stood there, shaking from repressed rage and tears pooling, unbidden, in her eyes, ready to clobber Naruto within an inch of his life, she naturally did not expect Sasuke to swoop down and act as her intervening dark knight. And nor had she expected him to tilt her head back by the chin, dark eyes dripping with amused stoicism, and close the distance between their parted lips.

''_GEH_...!'' A choked garble, distinctly Naruto, broke through the sudden silence as Sasuke deepened their lip-lock, tongue probing against her bottom lip and summoning a soft moan in response. A few loud hoots, courtesy of Kiba, Ino and Tenten sounded, but Sakura was only dimly aware of the jeering as she entangled her fingers in Sasuke's shirt, clinging onto equilibrium desperately as the wet heat of his mouth sent hot tingles down her spine.

Of which then gravitated towards the molten pool that had gathered in her stomach, her cheeks growing warm under the sensations that were sweeping through her mouth.

Sasuke withdrew, flicking his tongue against her top lip before he pressed an intimate kiss to the quirked corner of her stunned mouth, his expression endlessly amused as he turned his confident smirk to the gathered masses around them. Not a shred of embarrassment stained his fair complexion, and as he met Naruto's horrified blue eyes with his own, Sakura could almost see the sparks fizzling between them.

''A kiss for a kiss, Naruto. Pucker up.'' Sasuke quipped sardonically, hilarity lacing his tone as he pointed mutely over the blonde's shoulder.

And there stood a charmed middle-aged woman, buxom and eager for some loving, her round face the picture of delight as she realised that she was standing under mistletoe with the young and gorgeous hero of her village. Naruto blanched, face rapidly paling as the insistent elder woman latched onto his arms with a vice grip that rooted him in place.

Sasuke, still smirking, took Sakura's hand in his, linking their fingers together as Sakura gazed up at him adoringly, her cheeks pink as his expression softened into a smile meant only for her.

''I don't have any qualms with kissing in public, so you know.'' Sasuke amended quietly, eyes dancing with mirth as he took in Sakura's growing state of fluster.

''So don't be surprised if there are more to come from now on.''

The pinkette swore her heart had just burst in her chest.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>''Undone by his own scheme. How grandoise.'' Kakashi murmured with a smile, eyes returning to his book as Naruto's tormented screams echoed throughout the streets of Konoha.<p>

''OH MY GOD, NOOOOOOO!''

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> _LOL. Well, what can I say? I felt like some meddlesome crack, and so I have delivered it. _

_Any excuse for some hot tongue on tongue action via Sasuke-kun, I say. xDD_

_Anyhow, that's all from me for now. Please leave a review on your way out, guys!_

_Until tomorrow!_

-x-**R**_ i_ n-x-


	10. Sleepover

**Author's Note:** _Uhhhh what can I say, other than I got lost on the road of life, and that Christmas is counter-intuitive to the writing spirit. Thanks for the 100 reviews guys! I am totally stoked!_

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><p><em><strong>Melt the Mistletoe<strong>_

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><p><strong>Ten:<strong> Sleepover

**_._**

**_Characters: Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura_**

**_Categories: Romance_**

**_Rating: K_**

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><p>The early morning sun filtered into the vast quietude that made up Sakura's bedroom, casting a soft white hue over the wrinkled sheets of her bed and flickering over the restless plains of her face. A ruffled sigh of discontent left her lips, but her eyes remained closed to the glittering rays of daybreak. Her body, once cold, was filled to the brim with warmth, the source of it shifting behind her, and she smiled subliminally, unaware of the tangibility of that gentle touch of raw heat.<p>

Sasuke leaned into her petite frame with as much care as he could muster, careful not to waken the slumbering princess now wrapped in his steely embrace. He had returned to Konoha from a perilously long ANBU mission in the dead of night, the bitter winter's chill seeping through to his very bones as he made the long trek to her apartment; intent on being the first thing that she saw when she woke in the morning.

He had pried the spare key to her apartment from the necklace strung about his neck, the fingers of his sole hand completely numb as he fumbled with the lock; lacking his usual dexterity as he all but jammed it into the slot and twisted it with a graceless jerk of his heavy wrist. Hot tingles stabbed imperceptibly beneath the taut pull of his skin, out of reach and causing Sasuke a great deal of discomfort as he sidled into the foyer, stealthy as always as he closed the door and reinforced it behind the deadlock once more.

Sighing quietly through lips that had been weathered down to a chapped, bleeding mess courtesy of the raging blizzard outside, the raven haired Uchiha bent down, slipping out of his ninja sandals, designed to be resistent to the frigid winds of winter but doing very little to dissuade the cold from seeping into him regardless. Wordlessly, he placed them against the gentle instep of the landing, paired neatly alongside the pinkette's boots, before he stepped up onto the wooden planks, weightlessly gliding down the darkened hall until he met with the winding staircase that led to the uppermost level of her apartment.

Fatigue washed over his face as he seriously contemplated hijacking the couch for the night, but then a spattering of raised hairs prickled at his senses, and he sighed once more. It was much too cold to try and brave the night away on the death trap that was Sakura's ancient couch, and he really didn't find the idea of sleeping without her there by his side very appealing either.

''Tch. Goddamned stairs.'' Sasuke muttered tersely, running a frazzled hand through his dampened hair (mushy snow tends to do this, unfortunately), before he placed it upon the nearest banister, hefting his tired limbs up the wooden obstacles with a light grimace pulling at his lips.

What spurned him forward was the prospect of sinking into bed-sheets alongside the woman he loved, her warmth all-encompassing and a welcome home that he could not resist, and thus Sasuke climbed, unfastening the clasps that held his thick winter cloak in place around his shoulders as he went.

Rolling his very stiff shoulders, as if to unwind the tension from his every molecule, Sasuke made it to the second floor landing, his feet treading softly against the sturdy oak as he sauntered over to the door that led to Sakura's bedroom. Anticipation filled his gut, sending sparks of warmth to the very tips of his tingling toes as he pried her door open, slipping into the dark vestibule with the soundless grace that he was so prided for. He made sure that he had properly closed the wooden barricade, sooty eyes watchful as they gazed at the stilled form settled beneath heavy sheets.

Sakura's breathing was deep and even, and her peaceful state practically stripped the exhaustion from Sasuke's body. With a gentle twist to his lips, the ANBU Captain sidled over to the bedside, hands prying off his vest with quiet ease before they lifted the hem of his dark shirt in tow, the thick material falling to the floor without a sound. In just his dark sweats, the firm ridges and muscles crisscrossing over his pale chest undulating with his every breath, Sasuke cautiously lifted the first layer of many blankets draped unceremoniously over the shivering pinkette, pulling it away so that he too could settle beneath its precarious warmth.

Discovering another three doonas beneath had Sasuke raising his eyebrows, but then the cold stabbed at his naked flesh, and he realised what the problem was.

_So her heating system is down, huh_, Sasuke mused with a furrow etched into his brow, handsome face unreadable as he noted that her cheeks were flushed even with all of the thick material shielding her from the unpleasant chill in her room. He would have to rectify this situation immediately, and he knew the remedy to it without having to think about it at all.

Curling the blankets over one another, Sasuke sunk indulgently into the first real bed he had slept on in four months, his bones almost groaning as they melted into the plush mattress without even a creak from the normally protesting springs. Sasuke exhaled, lifting the blankets over his body without further ado and shifting onto his side, his large frame folding around Sakura's until his chest was pressed firmly against her lithe back.

It was at times like this that firmly reminded him just how vulnerable she really was. Regardless of her supposed inhuman strength, she was still a woman, _his_ woman, and she felt so fragile in his arms at that very moment that he was afraid for a moment that he would break her if he held onto her too tightly. Never the less he wrapped her up in his warmth, dark eyes contented at the sight of her transient expression.

He smiled then, the gesture fleeting at most, and he bent down slightly, pressing a gentle kiss to the corner of her parted lips. Settling himself into the comfort of her body, Sasuke fell into a deep sleep, inertia quick to claim him now that he had finally found his share of blissful peace.

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><p>As it was, the fickle light of daybreak had sharpened Sasuke's already heightened senses to the point of it being intolerable, and he had woken alongside the rising sun. He had always been like that, since he had been a small child. Sakura, he knew, was his exact opposite, and could very easily succumb to the comforts of her bed for an entire day if her status as a kunoichi and medic weren't impeding her from the notion.<p>

Sasuke smirked a little, amusement turning into a swell of unadulterated affection as Sakura moaned her discontent into her pillow.

''Silly girl...'' He murmured softly, right hand coming up to brush away the tangled strands of pink that had fallen over her forehead, tucking them behind her ear with a whispering tickle to her flushed cheek along the way.

He ghosted those very fingers along the soft curve of her jaw, tilting her head a little more his way as the light furthered its assault against her shuttered eyelids. She shifted against him, clearly unhappy with the brightening of her bedroom, and Sasuke had to fight the urge to chuckle at the childish pout that had pulled unwittingly across the stubborn set of her mouth.

Nearly rolling his eyes, the raven haired Uchiha slipped his left arm beneath her head, his remaining arm sliding over the deliciously bared skin of her shoulder before he rolled her gently in his direction, her covered breasts brushing suggestively against his bared front as her arms naturally folded around him.

Resting his chin atop her head, Sasuke smiled, relishing in the deep-seated heat that sunk into his pores like a man starved. He inhaled her, then, reacquainting himself with her scent as the essence of her being became apart of him once more―an entangled mess of limbs and a quiet sigh of contentment lulling him off to sleep once more.

Another hour of sleep couldn't hurt, after all.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p><strong>Ending Remarks:<strong> _Short and sweet, just the way I like it. :3_

_I love the idea of Sasuke-kun doing this. Just ugh. Roll me into your arms please. *^*_

_Please leave a review! Lots more fluff and potential smutty goodness where that came from!_

_Until tomorrow!_

-x-**R**_ i_ n-x-


	11. Dance

**Author's Note:** _Thanks guys! I want to use this space to respond to guest reviewer _Mars_; I apologise if my previous ending remarks dissuaded you from reviewing. As an author, no matter how small, every review is precious. I don't care if it says something that is completely nonsensical; every word has meaning. As long as it is positive, I am content. When I ask for constructive feedback, it doesn't need to be a long list of "dos and don't's." I just want to hear what you liked, and what I could do better, which is easily done in one sentence. (:_

_Thank you for your reviews though. They were wonderfully insightful._

**Additional Note: ''**Anywhere**'' by **Evanescence**. Listen to it. It sets the tone nicely. And "**Skin**" (_Version_ _2_) by** Rihanna** when you get to Ino and Sakura partying. C;**

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><p><em><strong>Melt the Mistletoe<strong>_

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><p><strong>Eleven:<strong> Dance

**_._**

**_Characters: Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, Team 7, Yamanaka Ino_**

**_Categories: Romance, Friendship_**

**_Rating: T+ (for some sexy dancing)_**

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><p>Sakura shifted nervously, her eyes scanning the ever-expanding crowds of people milling about the village square for a familiar head of rebellious raven hair. When she found it, she all but shoved her way through the milling masses, her hand hooking onto his as he looked down at her, relief etched into the planes of his face. Getting separated before the big night had not been on the top of her priorities, and she clung onto him with a renewed sense of purpose.<p>

The jubilant blonde Yamanaka Ino had called her late last night, practically screeching with excitement incomparable down the headset.

"OH MY GOD FOREHEAD GIRL, DID YOU HEAR? YOUR SENSEI IS THROWING A CHRISTMAS DANCE BASH TOMORROW AND WE'RE ALL INVITED!" Holding the earpiece away from her now ringing ear, the pinkette sighed in exasperation, shaking her head with a taut smile on her lips.

Some things never changed. Sakura was thankful for the normalcy, but still wished that Ino would turn down the decibels, if only for the sake of her wilting hearing. Sakura flopped onto the couch in her living area, sighing as she wrapped herself up in the woollen throw and settled against the cushions. This was going to be a long night.

"I am well aware of Kakashi-sensei's plans for tomorrow night, Ino-Pig. Mostly because I had the biggest hand in them coming into fruition. Let's face it; the day Kaka-sensei organises a party of his own volition is the day I'll sprout wings and fly to the moon." Sakura explained with a short laugh, which was quickly reciprocated by the vivacious kunoichi on the other end of the line.

"Yeah, well that sounds accurate enough, I suppose. Asuma-sensei was a lot like that too. Never really into planning for festive celebrations, more interested in sneaking around with Kurenai behind our backs." There was a lilting sadness in Ino's tone, and the nostalgic quality to her tenor did not go amiss with the pink haired medic.

"Asuma-sensei was a great man. A little on the irresponsible side sometimes, but he was always there when it counted." Sakura stated softly with a gentle smile. She had grown very fond of the Sarutobi slouch, who had taken her under his wing in the midst of her specialist training of and with Ino, and made her feel like she belonged in their little family.

Ino huffed out a quiet laugh, enjoying the sweet moment of reminiscence with her best friend, of whom she had shared so much with; pain, happiness, despair and bitterness, all wrapped up in a box of dark delights that was sometimes too difficult to endure opening.

Thankfully this was not one of those moments, and both girls cherished the mutuality of the companionable silence that had settled between them.

"...So you know... About this dance..." Ino trailed off suddenly, hesitancy lacing her voice as she pondered on the right words to say. Sakura raised her eyebrows, expression the epitome of surprise at this unexpected development. Ino was as buoyant as her bubbly father, which was a big part of the reason why the two got along so well. So to hear reluctance clearly in the tremor of her oftentimes whiny squeal was a little disconcerting.

"What's up, Ino? You're not usually so reserved about the whole dance thing, y'know." Sakura murmured in a playful tone, teasing the blonde woman in the hopes of getting a rise out of her.

"I know, it's just..." Ino continued with a surprising amount of consideration touching her tone. Now the pinkette knew something was up. When did Ino ever _not_ rise to her baiting?

"It's just, well, it makes sense to take a date, right? I mean, Shikamaru roped Temari into going with him―god knows how, mind you. He's such a lazy bum, I just don't get why that Sand girl would waste her time on him, but whatever. Even Chouji got a date!"

"Ehhhh? Really? Who?" Sakura interjected with a voice dripping with disbelief. Chouji was a sweet boy, very kind and easy to like, but date material he was not. He was too focused on food and friends to ever have enough time for a girlfriend, but apparently this assumption was wrong. Sakura grinned. She was truly glad for him. He deserved to be liked by someone who saw the good in him.

"That girl from Kumo. You know... Uhhhh, I think her name was Kauri?"

"I think you meant Karui, Ino-Pig. And yeah, I know her. She was the girl that beat the crap out of Naruto when he stood up for Sasuke-kun's freedom." Sakura intoned, clearly amused as she gave a brief description of the woman in question.

"Dark red hair, dark skin, about our height, attitude in droves. Quite frankly I like her. She's got spunk."

Ino huffed in response, clearly at odds with Sakura's opinion of the "chick from the Land of Lightning."

"Well I don't agree so much, Forehead. I mean, she's rude, completely obnoxious, and can't take a joke for the life of her. I don't know what Chouji sees in her."

"And yet the same could be said of Chouji."

"Shut it, pinky. Chouji has plenty of strong points. Any girl would be lucky to have him."

"Oh my, is this the same Yamanaka Ino that said she'd sooner _die_ than date the chubby-chaser-in-training Akimichi Chouji?"

"Oh my god Sakura, _shush_! I may not have the nerve to date the walking food-stand, but there are plenty of people that find big eaters attractive. Especially if they're kind, considerate and sensitive like my Chouji."

"Is that _jealousy_ I detect, Ino? Since when did you ever refer to your teammates as _yours_?"

"Since forever. Like you'd know. My team is my life, and I'll be damned if they screw it up by fucking the wrong girls."

"_INO_!" Sakura yelled, aghast by the sudden crudeness of their back and forth banter. Her face twisted into an appalled stretch of discomfiture as she rolled onto her side, green eyes trailing the freshly painted walls of her apartment until they fell upon the clock overhanging her television set. It read 11:47pm.

"Sorry, sorry, Prude-hime. Didn't realise you were so sensitive about cussing." Ino said with a vibrant laugh, defying the lateness of the hour.

"But I mean it. I want them to choose people that will value them for _them_. They're so wonderful, and the most important people in my life. I don't want them to settle below their worth, because they deserve nothing but the best. Like my tou-san and kaa-san. The best for the best." Her voice came out a little tighter than before, emotions high-strung as she spoke tearfully into the receiver. It was still a fresh wound, the death of her father during the war, and his memory haunted her in so many ways.

Ino was a fighter, though, and her resilience was what made her so attractive to so many people. She never let anything get her down for long. It was just that losing her daddy was the hardest pill for her to swallow.

"I get what you mean." Sakura responded empathetically, thinking of her own beloved boys. Naruto was happy and healthy in his blossoming relationship with Hinata, whilst she and Sasuke had slipped into a wonderful dynamic also. _Two years_, she thought with a broad smile at the pictures nailed onto the walls. Within their monochromatic frames, there were many images; of family, of her beloved youth with Team Kakashi, growing up, and various photographs of her alongside her gorgeous boyfriend.

They had been doing very well, and she was excited to see him back in the village after his extensive leave-of-absence with her idiotic male best friend Naruto.

"I'd do anything to ensure their happiness. Anything at all."

"Oh I know you would, you lucky bitch. It so happens that you're dating _the hottest thing alive_, in the history of mankind, so you don't have to worry about this shitty 'dance with a date' deal. It's _me_ I'm worried about!" Ino near shrieked into the headset, her aquamarine eyes wide and frantic as she finally expelled her concerns to her pink haired girlfriend.

"I have _no_ idea what to do about this, and it's such short notice, and I just―WHAT THE HELL SHOULD I DO FOREHEAD?"

"Whoa there, Pig, calm down! You're gorgeous, have a mostly tolerable personality―" Sakura was cut off by Ino's indignant _"HEY!"_, her lips stretched tautly over her teeth as she grinned unabashedly, "―and any guy would be lucky to have you on their arm."

"But I don't want a guy who wants me to hang off of them like I'm some cheap accessory!" Ino exclaimed with a sob, her face the picture of despair.

"I... I want a guy that wants me for _me._ That loves me for who I am, and not for what I look like. I want what you and Sasuke-kun have." Ino amended softly, her eyes misted over with tears as she opened her heart with a frankness that only she could possess. Sakura's eyes widened, clearly stunned by the blonde's admission, before her expression morphed into loving compassion.

"And that's what you shall get, Ino. You just need to be assertive. I don't think Sai would ever realise you exist otherwise." Sakura chuckled when she heard Ino muffle her surprised gasp in the palm of her hand.

"H-How did you―?"

"Oh _please_, Ino, you're more obvious than Captain Clarity. I think everyone realised you liked him long before even _you_ did." Sakura's voice dripped with amusement. Ino could be so blantantly airheaded sometimes that she was pitiable, but that made her all the more endearing to the pinkette.

''I guess so...'' Ino trailed off, embarrassment colouring her soft tone as she lay back on her plush mattress, twirling the ends of her long fringe around her index finger.

"What do I need to do to, well, catch his eye, Sakura? You're his teammate, so you should know him best of all after all these years together."

Sakura scoffed, rolling her eyes to the heaven's as she thought of the emotionally constipated ex-ROOT nin that put even Sasuke to shame when it came to feelings. His understanding was, admittedly, better than when they had first met; indeed, he had been quite the bleak basket-case.

But even so, his emotions developed slowly, and often he would come to Sakura for assistance in identifying them. It wasn't that she particuarly minded. She had come to value Sai as a dear friend and a wonderful source of entertainment whenever he was let loose upon Naruto on their squad missions, but sometimes he had the _worst possible timing_.

An intimate moment or five with Sasuke had been absolutely and irrevocably _ruined_ by his lack of social etiquette, and as he had never conformed to the usual nine to five working hour schedule, it should have been predictable. Never the less, it was safe to say that Sasuke had a healthy loathing for the dark haired invalid, as his face would visibly sour whenever the two were left to their own devices. Although Sakura was by no means a sadist, she couldn't help but enjoy their collective discomfort around each other, especially when specific anatomical additions were casually brought up in conversation by the clueless artist.

Sakura shook her head against the fluffy pillows beneath her head, sinking her full weight into the couch as she returned back to the conversation at hand.

"Ino, if I were to be blatantly honest with you, then I would suggest that you steer clear of the clueless wonder entirely. He's a tough nut to crack after all. But being the person that you are, I doubt that you'll heed that advice."

A loud _"You're damned right I won't!"_ was her response to that jibe. Sakura soldiered on regardless.

"But I think that is the kind of approach that is needed to rope him in, Pig. From my experience with him, you need to be assertive and aggressive as hell in order to keep his attention on you. Go on the attack! He certainly won't do you any favours in that regard, believe me." Sakura finished, utterly exasperated, lying back against the folded arm that she had slipped under her head and closing her eyes to the clock on the wall.

12:39pm. When would Ino's tirade end?

"You really think he'd, well, _get it_? I mean if I did that. If I were the one in control, then do you think he'd be willing to, you know, go out with me?"

"Ino, you're his only hope of ever having a relatively normal relationship. In fact, you're the only hope in hell he has at _ever_ keeping a girl besotted with him by just being his usual insulting self, period. So don't let your nerves get the better of you and just ask him out already." The pinkette shrugged off her weariness, finding that that was proving nearly ineffective as interia tugged at the frayed edges of her distracted conscience. She wanted to sleep, but only when Ino wasn't feeling so self-conscious.

"Well okay then, I guess. If you think I can do it, then I'll give it a go." Ino exclaimed with renewed vigor, her eyes smiling as brightly as her face before she rolled over to face her alarm clock. Flashing red numbers indicated that it was just short of one in the morning.

"Thanks for everything, Forehead. I'll let you go now. I think we both need sleep desperately after all of this gossip." They both laughed then.

"Yeah, you're probably right about that. I'm kind of drifting off here on the couch."

"Oh _god_, not that shitty fucking couch of yours! You seriously need to get a refund on that piece of shit, Sakura. Get that sensei of yours to put a deposit on a new lounge for you. Or better yet, ditch the couch and place claim on half of Sasuke-kun's apartment! Isn't about time the two of you moved in together? It's been, what, two years now?"

Sakura flushed scarlet. Did she really just go there at―1:07 in the blessed a.m.?

"Ino, not this again.."

"Don't 'not this again' me, Sakura! You two have been practically joined at the hip these last few months! What would be so weird about living together when you're already having sleepovers every other night when he's back in Konoha?" Ino inquired with a sinister smile cutting across her face. She was simply diabolical once she had started on a tirade. The last two hours were definitive proof of this.

"It's not as if you have anything to be shy about! You've already done the deed by now, surely. What's so embarrassing about sharing a bathroom?"

Sakura was eerily silent, her cheeks practically glowing under the intense lights of her corner lamps. Ino felt her heart lurch, and the realisation dawned on her; almost as quickly as she had unravelled the reason for Sakura's sudden quiet, had the blonde shot up on her bed, shrieking once more down the land-line.

"_NO FUCKING WAY_! YOU AND SASUKE _HAVEN'T HAD SEX YET_?! ARE YOU _SHITTING_ ME―"

"Oh my _god_ Ino, you _whore_, _shut the fuck up_!" Sakura hissed into her headset, face vermillion and eyes narrowed into a heated glare as she pounded her fist into the closest pillow. The seams burst apart under the crushing force of her punch, feathers exploding from within and billowing down around her flustered face.

"What Sasuke-kun and I have or have not done is _none_ of your damned business!"

"Sorry, Forehead. It's not a bad thing or anything. I'm just surprised is all. You two are so close, so I kind of just assumed that you'd, well, yeah―"

"Well we haven't, so can we please drop this already?" Sakura exclaimed tersely, not giving Ino a chance to respond, as she promptly hung up, throwing the phone across the room until it landed with a_ 'thud!'_ on the armchair in the corner.

Rolling inwards to face the interior of the couch, the pink haired med-nin wrapped her arms around her face, desperately staving off the heated blush that had settled on her cheeks. Sex had been far from either of their minds, and Sakura had been content with that decision to refrain from bringing it up. But the pressure had begun to mount when even Hinata had finally admitted to sleeping with Naruto for the first time a month ago.

The shy wallflower of their group had lost her virginity before Sakura, and although she wasn't fussed on issues of intercourse and was more than content to remain as she was in their relationship, something inside of her had wilted under the expectations of her friends. Even her parents had made the assumption that grandchildren were just over the horizon, and quite frankly, that could not have been any farther from the truth.

Now it wasn't as if Sasuke had exhibited zero interest in her. It was just that he was comfortable with the way that they were progressing as a couple, and if Sakura was truthful, so was she. She was in no hurry to have sex. She was content with the heat that they shared, without the added stress of performance anxiety on top of that.

But even so... she couldn't stop the slight tightening of her chest as she drifted off into a disturbed sleep, dreaming of dark hair and endless eyes devouring her entire existence whole betwixt twisted bed-sheets.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>Heat pervaded her senses, the tingling of her jittery nerves a firm reminder that it was cold and that falling asleep on her couch was a terrible idea, and she moaned softly as her once deadweight frame was lifted effortlessly into rigid warmth that was all too familiar to her slumbering awareness. Eyelids heavy with exhaustion, Sakura allowed her head to loll back against the firm expanse of a toned shoulder, nearly having to peel her eyes open with her numb fingers as she adjusted to the gloom of her apartment, submerged in darkness.<p>

The peerless obsidian orbs of Uchiha Sasuke stared back at her, face carefully aloof as he studied the haggard lines and circles that bruised her usually vibrant visage. Never the less, she was still a wonder to behold, and Sasuke took his time taking her in as he carried her down the hallway to her bedroom. He was decked to the fullest in winter garb, and his normally pallid complexion was marred with molten blotches that stood out angrily against the refined cut of his cheekbones. Still, he was a sight for sore eyes, and Sakura's first instinct was to wrap her arms around his neck, nuzzling into him affectionately as he adjusted his grip on her so as to reciprocate her affectionate ministration.

He held her to him as he turned the wobbly knob of her bedroom door, pushing the barricade open with ease and letting it fall to a quiet close behind him as he strode over to her bed. Holding her weight with his prosthetic arm, Sasuke lifted the thick blanket thrown neatly over her mattress back, craning over and lowering the shivering pinkette into the stale cold of her kempt sheets before he stepped back; Sakura reached for him on an impulse to be close, to be warm again, and Sasuke smirked a little, the expression summoning delightful little butterflies in her stomach as he slipped out of his cloak and shirt without a pause in between, discarding the loose articles of clothing with a dismissive flick of his wrist onto the floor at his feet.

In just his loose khaki slacks, he was all sharp lines and rippling muscle, and Sakura had to bite her lip to stave off the moan of approval that his appearance stirred from within her. Without further adieu, Sasuke clambered onto the bed, sinking eloquently into the plush mattress with practiced ease before he reached out and pulled the flustered pinkette toward his bared chest.

Sakura noted the sluggishness in that single movement, and thus saved him the effort; all but barrelling into his naked torso, she snuggled into his heat, finally comfortable with her surroundings as she greeted her love softly in the din of the night, afraid that being too loud would disperse this wonderful dream from existence.

"Welcome home, Sasuke-kun."

She drifted off then, smiling into his collarbone as he pressed a fleeting kiss to the crest of her pink hair, his grip on her tightening imperceptibly as he too succumbed to slumber.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>"Do I look okay, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked with a twirl in the evening of his return, the glittering silk of her chiffon cocktail dress catching off of the dimmed lights in her bedroom.<p>

Sasuke paused―having just stepped out of the shower―in drying his damp hair, dark eyes zeroing in on the petite woman admiring her reflection in a full-body mirror. The dress enhanced all of her assets in a manner that was entirely flattering and not garishly slutty, and her skin was showing in select areas that made Sasuke's fingers twitch on impulse. How he wanted to bare the rest that lay obscured beneath the silken fabric of her gown.

It was cream around the bodice, and opened into a flair of mousy brown from her waistline that dropped to just above her knees. She was pulling on a thick pair of stockings to match the ensemble, black stretched taut over the wonderful curves of her legs, and she was quick to add a pair of chestnut coloured leg warmers over her ankles to ensure an extra layer of warmth. A pair of heeled boots lay at the foot of her bed, unassuming, but Sasuke knew that they would look stunning on those lithe limbs of hers. He swallowed, mouth slightly drier than it had been a moment before.

She locked gazes with him in the mirror, face sweetly smiling in nervous anticipation as he gave his verdict. With a light spattering of pink dusting over his regal cheeks, Sasuke returned her stare with one filled to the brim with electric intensity.

"Beautiful."

It was the only word he said, but it carried all of the impact that a novella of love letters could never begin to express, and Sakura blushed under his scrutiny.

Never the less she was incredibly pleased, and she smiled jubilantly as she allowed her softly curling hair to fall neatly around her shoulders. While Sasuke pulled on his dress shirt and jacket, Sakura made sure to gather all of her gifts for the ensuing night's festivities into several bags, sorting out her purse in the kitchen as her boyfriend sidled down the hallway, ready in half the time she had taken to spruce up for the party.

"Ready to head out?" Sasuke questioned softly, expression decidedly gentle as he reached out for her hand.

She took it without hesitation, her grin brightening his sour disposition (regarding parties slash gatherings of any kind) as they exited her apartment, making sure to lock the door behind them before they made their way to the Hokage Mansion.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>The party was in full swing by the time they had arrived. Sasuke, although a stickler for keeping the time, was not anxious to get there in a hurry, so they had taken their time strolling through the busy streets of Konoha, checking out the evening stalls and responding to idle chit-chat as a means of delaying the inevitable. Sakura called out to every person she met with, wishing them a Merry Christmas whilst Sasuke walked stoically alongside her, fingers entwined with hers as he shot glares at any man who had the nerve to stare for even a moment at his lovely girlfriend.<p>

Sakura, completely oblivious to the unwanted attention that she was receiving, smiled as she became invested in cheerful banter with Yamanaka Ino's mother, who was being overly gracious with her complimenting of the pink haired kunoichi. Although the idea of a rowdy party was unpleasant to Sasuke, at least there were some familiar faces that knew well of his overprotective nature pertaining to all things Sakura, and would not even think of turning their hungry eyes on her knowing the potential for a painful death at the hands of the ex-nukenin.

Tugging on her arm, Sasuke pulled her from her heated discussion with the elder Yamanaka woman, who could only giggle teasingly at the look of annoyance that had settled on Sasuke's face as he led the startled pinkette away. And thus they had arrived to loud, obnoxious music, made even more obnoxious by the drunken shinobi singing Christmas carols at the top of their lungs alongside it.

Sasuke scowled.

Sakura laughed outright at the petulant jut his lip had adopted at having been coerced into this scenario to begin with.

_Goddamned Naruto and his blackmailing ways―_

"Hey, Sakura-chan! Teme! You made it! It's about time!" Said blonde fluttered into their line of sight, and before either could protest, he had his arms thrown around their shoulders, leading them straight into the thick of the surrounding fray without so much as look behind him, his expression alight with festive cheer as he deposited of them on a couch that was occupied by a group of familiar faces.

"Forehead Girl! It's about time you showed up!" Ino exclaimed with a bubbly grin on her face, her arm not so discreetly tucked into Sai's as he sat there, a little flustered and anything but impassive to the attention that he was receiving from his apparent "accessory."

_Atta girl, Ino!_ Inner Sakura proclaimed with a hoot. _Reel him in!_

"Sorry we're late. I kept running into friendly faces that wanted to chat, so I kind of inadvertently dragged Sasuke-kun into the mingling." She shot him an apologetic look. He merely squeezed her hand in response, grunting mutely before he focused his attention on the bombastic blonde running his mouth off a mile a minute alongside him with a look of mild amusement on his face.

He really had learned to tolerate Naruto's penchant for inanity these past few years.

"Don't worry about it, my love! We have some things to discuss!" Ino exclaimed, nonplussed, before she stood from her place alongside the antsy Sai. She bent down, whispered something into the shell of his ear that had his pale cheeks heating up with a blush, before she sidled over to the pinkette, taking her by her remaining hand and tugging her to her feet as well; inevitably drawing the attention of the raven haired man clasping her left hand in his own.

"I am stealing your woman for a dance, and you can't stop me!" Was all Ino said to the proud man, still seated and stunned into silence at the bluntness of her casual remark, before she pried his fingers from the smiling pinkette's hand and all but dragged her into the pulsating masses that had overtaken Kakashi's mansion's floors.

Sakura's green eyes searched the crowd for that mane of silver hair that indicated her sensei's presence, and she found him leaning against the farthest wall from all of the action, looking bored as hell as one of his advisors chewed him out for his tardiness, as usual. Their gazes met briefly, and he sent her a two fingered salute that was quickly shot down by the fuming aid.

Sakura laughed, but it was breathy at best, as Ino was tugging her along until they were settled amidst the chaos of bodies throbbing with infectious Christmas cheer and techno beats. The blonde turned to face her then, arms folding around her neck and pulling her close, forcing Sakura's around her slim waist. They swayed to the beat, eyes locked on each other's for a fleeting moment before Ino's face lit up with a smile so bright that it put the sun to shame.

"I did it, Sakura! I was aggressive, and Sai agreed to go out with me!" The excitement that laced her tone was palpable, and was reinforced in the animated swinging of their hips as they moved in sync with the music. Sakura returned her smile with gusto.

"That's great, Ino! Good for you! I'm glad it worked out well!" Their eyes strayed back to where their friends were sitting, Sasuke still focused on Naruto whilst Sai was sending inconspicuous stares their way.

"He can't keep his eyes off of you, Pig. What'd you do to get him so transfixed and flustered?" Sakura asked, her voice one big, curious question mark as she directed a pointed stare at the blonde kunoichi.

"I _might_ have promised to model for him in the nude if he accompanied me to this party." Ino smirked deviously, and Sakura could only gape at her. She knew Ino had no issues about showing her naked body to people. What surprised her was the fact that she would make herself so vulnerable in front of the man she liked under the premise of only wanting one date from him.

"Are you _sure_ you made your intentions known to him, Ino? I don't want him to come to me in the middle of the night all broken and stuff because you weren't clear about what you wanted from him." A solid smack on her arm had Sakura laughing full-force, Ino quickly joining in on the giggling fit before she leaned into Sakura even more.

"Just so you're aware; Sasuke-kun is staring _right at you_, and _man_ does he look conflicted." Ino stated with amusement oozing from her pores, Sakura stiffening in her arms as the blonde tactfully tilted them around enough so that Sakura could observe the raven haired Uchiha from her peripherals. Indeed he was gazing fixedly in their direction, his face just short of tormented as Naruto openly gaped at their intertwined limbs. It all seemed platonic enough to them, but obviously not to the male population, most of whom had directed their unabashed ogling their way.

"Whoops. Looks like we got a little too hot for them to handle." Ino quipped with a seductive smile in Sai's direction, watching with delight as his cheeks flared up with a brutal vermillion hue. Sakura felt her own cheeks flood with warmth as Sasuke gripped his glass with enough force to shatter it; the shards fell forgotten to the ground, the dark haired Uchiha transfixed at the sight of Sakura lightly grinding against her blonde friend.

"Should we give them a show they'll never forget?" Ino whispered covertly into the shell of Sakura's ear, sliding her hands down the pink haired medic's arms before she raised them above both of their heads, those same impetuous hands trailing down her exposed limbs and ghosting down to her vivacious hips, where they stayed. Pulling her back flush to Ino's front, Sakura felt a thrill of anticipation drop into her gut at the intensity smouldering behind Sasuke's hooded ebony irises as she rocked her hips along with Ino's.

She felt a deep throb resonate through her stomach, sinking deeper still until the press of her thighs against one another caused a heated friction that had her squirming against the blonde kunoichi behind her. As if lulled into a trance, Sakura let her eyes fall to a close, using the momentum of the beat as the force that anchored her in place, her body swaying in delicious arcs of flesh that beseeched human touch.

It had been too long since she had let loose like this. The tension in her body unravelled alongside her inhibitions, and without a trace of alcohol in her system, Sakura had never felt more inebriated―her flesh tingling hotly under Ino's small hands.

The heat reached a blazing tempest before it subsided, being replaced with cool flames that licked at every inch of exposed skin on her body. Sakura's eyes snapped open at the solid frame that had settled behind her, large hands cupping the gentle slope of her waist with practiced precision as her arching body careened back into firm musculature.

When Sakura looked up, green eyes wide and a heated blush tearing across her lovely features, she was looking straight into the eyes of her stoic lover, who was anything but indifferent to her feminine wiles. Her lips parted to speak, but with a pointed grind against the small of her back courtesy of Sasuke's rocking hips, Sakura lost her ability to think coherently. Mind blank of thought, Sakura leaned into his eager touch, a sign of supplication that sent a thrill of adrenaline pumping through Sasuke's overactive system.

Her hands came to rest over the tops of his, fingers intwining with his clumsily as she rested her swaying frame against his, electrcity shooting up her spine when she brushed up against his toned chest. Sakura was lost in sensation, so she did nothing but feel.

The texture of his silky shirt against the slivers of exposed skin at her back.

The coarseness of his slacks against the velvety material of her tights―which had begun to cling too tautly to her now smothered legs.

The intense burning that had erupted within the core of her being.

Everything blurred around her but the feel of Sasuke's body against hers, and she loved it.

More than sex, there was something incredibly intimate about the way their bodies melded into one another, brushing up against each other in tentative teases that had them aching for something more substantial.

They had never experienced touch quite like this before, and as Sakura arched into his hands, which had trailed over her tummy to cup her aching breasts, confined behind layers of heavy material, and his lips pressing hot kisses to the side of her exposed throat, she knew that she would have to dance with Ino more often.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p><strong>Ending Remarks:<strong> _Hot enough for ya?_

_I am slowly building into the smut. How do you like thus far? C;_

_I had way too much fun writing this ahhhhhh― ¬/^/¬_

_Please review!_

_We are starting to reach the veritable climax, where fluff converges with citrus, so do be prepared for some adult funtime guys. ;3_

_Until tomorrow!_

-x-**R** _i_ n-x-


	12. Cake

**Author's Note:** _Once again, I kindly give you all my deepest gratitude for leaving such wonderful reviews. They really do inspire me to be a better author. (:_

_I apologise for the lateness. I kind of got stuck on how to write this one out LOL. You need an icebreaker for intense shit like this, after all._

_The rating has officially been bumped up to M, but that doesn't mean that there won't be any more fluff. Look for the corresponding ratings at the beginning of every chapter. :3_

_Skip this if citrus isn't your thing, guys. C;_

_**Additional Note: Listen to "**_Eternal Love_**" by **_Future World Music_** if you're interested.**_

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><p><em><strong>Melt the Mistletoe<strong>_

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><p><strong>Twelve:<strong> Cake

**_._**

**_Characters: Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura_**

**_Categories: Romance_**

**_Rating: M (for lime)_**

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><p>Sakura had always loved sweets. Shaved ice infused with lemons were a particular favourite that the pinkette often indulged in in the summer, when the heat was unbearable and had everyone in the village seeing heatwave mirages three steps in front of them. But now that the frosty sleet of winter had fallen upon the Village Hidden in the Leaves, its reaches spreading far and wide throughout the land, Sakura had to find other desserts that could satiate her palette that did not carry the threat of impending frostbite.<p>

When the small children admitted in the hospital discreetly stuffed candy into her dress pockets, she could never turn them down, even at the risk of expanding her waistline. Sakura had always been a glutton, after all, and did not see a reason to hide it. Most of her off-time was spent with Ino, Hinata and Tenten in the local tea house, sipping on hot beverages and eating dango fresh from the kitchen, and thus confectionery culture played a huge part in her socialisations as well.

Now that Christmas was just a day away, the pink haired kunoichi was scouring the marketplace for one such tempting treat, Sasuke trekking alongside her with a slight grimace on his face. Unlike her, who thrived off of collective interaction with the people around her, her stoic Uchiha lover was indifferent to the concept of being social, and tended to keep to himself; even small crowds made him tenser than razor-sharp wire.

But he was enduring his discomfort admirably, for her sake, his right hand entangled with hers whilst the prosthetic limb bore the weight of her Christmas shopping. Sakura smiled brightly up at him, and he looked down at her with an expression that was akin to tortured as she hauled him through the insanity of Christmas Eve trollers.

"We're almost done, Sasuke-kun!" She chirped with an animated grin back at his trailing frame, and she could feel the reluctance in his footsteps as she led him along to their final stop―the bakery.

Sakura knew from past experiences that the quaint business was well-equipped with decadent desserts lining every wall and shelf as far as the eye could see, and she wondered briefly if Sasuke's teeth would rot at the sight of so many sweets. He did not share her penchant for sugar, and was incredibly reluctant to ever put anything of the sort in his mouth as a result of this aversion. Naruto often took advantage of this distaste, using it as an excuse to devour the raven haired Uchiha's obligatory desserts whenever they went out to eat together. That was the only time when the blonde's obnoxious gluttony did not bother him.

The pinkette pushed open the door, the ringing of the little bells strung up upon the post above the entryway alerting the attentions of the clerk behind the display case in the centre of the room. Sakura felt her face brighten at the sight of the the store owner's welcoming smile.

"Ah, Sakura-san! Welcome back! I take it you're looking for something festive?"

"Yes, Akira-san. Right as always." Sakura responded kindly, green eyes drawn to the glittering Christmas decorations that were nearly outdone by the extravagant cakes and breads themselves. It made sense. They were meant to be the main attraction, after all. A plethora of reds, greens and whites invaded her senses, contrasting against vibrant, rich and rustic browns of varying hues and proportions.

A spicy sweetness permeated her nostrils, filling her with that familiar sensation that reminded her of Christmas as she tightened her grip on Sasuke's hand. She glanced up at him from the corner of her eye, noting the overwhelmed expression that had glazed over his countenance.

He had clearly not expected this, and that showed even more evidently in the nearly imperceptible flicker of wonderment that filled his wide onyx eyes. This was a new experience for the both of them; buying a Christmas cake for the first time for Sasuke, and buying a cake to share with with her boyfriend for the first time for Sakura. It made her more nervous than ever, because she knew that he was partial to very particular sensations on his tastebuds, and thus why it was important for him to be there to direct her towards something that he could tolerate.

Now she could very well just buy herself a small cake, knowing implicitly that Sasuke would neither mind nor particularly care either way.

"It's not like I'll eat it anyway," was what he had once so famously said when Naruto had swooped in to pilfer his chocolate-y treat, only to have Sakura smack him a good one for being so uncouth and uncivilised. She had learned then of his indifference to the joy of devouring the sugary delights that made her life so wonderful, and she wished to alter his perspective, if only a little.

Sasuke's eyes surveyed their surroundings while Sakura led him up to the viewing counter where Akira was waiting, a pleasant smile on her youthful face as the pinkette began ogling the glistening treats beneath the glass window.

"Is there anything that you would recommend for the festive season, Akira-san? I'm not especially partial to fruit-based confections, and Sasuke-kun isn't a fan of sweets like I am."

Akira adopted a thoughtful countenance, hand coming to rub her chin before a spark of inspiration flickered through her eyes.

"I think I have just the thing for the both of you." A warm smile lifted at her lips, and she beckoned them towards a display rack at the back of the store with a wave of her hand.

"A cake that is made for all occasions; simple, but best eaten hot, making it perfect for cuddling up on the couch during the winter season." Akira stated with an elegant flourish, pointing into the case at a small, round cake the size of a large discus. It was plain in comparison to the highly decorated pieces around it, with a smattering of frosting sugar covering the expanse of its dark brown base and only a small bundle of holly made of marzipan emblazoning it.

"Dark chocolate lava cake; bitter enough for those without a sweet tooth, and sweet enough to tickle your own tastebuds. Be sure to heat it up for at least three minutes before serving it in order for the chocolate in the centre to melt. And it can be served," Akira paused her speech for emphasis, striding over to another shelf and grabbing a can from the very top, before returning to their sides―Sasuke looking perplexed and Sakura curious. "With any variety of cream. Whipped or thickened, both blend marvelously with the decadence of the cocoa, and it will help to distill the bitterness of the dark chocolate."

Still wearing her business-cut grin, Akira handed the can of whipped cream to Sakura, who inspected it with eyes alight with excitement. She was a glutton for whipped cream. She was sold. Sensing an impending sale, the young shopkeeper straightened with an unruffled air of accomplishment engulfing her tall frame. Sakura had to hand it to her; for someone so young, probably only a year or two older than herself, the woman had shown a lot of professionalism, not once turning her yearning gaze to the incredibly handsome Uchiha attached to her hip, instead focusing on doing her job and doing it well.

Although she had come to know Akira as an acquaintance of sorts―from her sometimes too frequent visits to window shop her goods―and quite liked the girl, she knew what effect Sasuke had on women. It was a natural and deadly appeal that they had both lived with for as long as they had been able to walk, and she had expected more of a reaction, especially considering the fact that very few women ever had the chance to get a look at Sasuke at such a close range. Heedless to say, Sasuke seemed surprised by this as well, for he had been tense at her side, dreading that impending moment when the woman would turn her lustful gaze his way with little regard for the pinkette of whom he was holding hands with. Akira had not, and her reputation had gone up several notches in both of their books.

"I take it that you are interested in purchasing this as a combo?" Akira quipped with razor-like focus, blue eyes observing Sakura's resolved expression as she looked to Sasuke for confirmation. He merely nodded in response, squeezing her hand and nudging her in the attendant's direction. Sakura faced her then with a smile so beautiful that both parties felt their hearts jump in their chests.

"Yes! I'll take them both, please, Akira-san!"

Nodding in satisfaction, Akira thumbed the collection of keys at her hip, fingers quickly picking out the needed device before inserting it into the lock that kept the airtight, airconditioned box closed. Turning the deadlock over, she slid the case open, reaching in to pull the metal tray that the cake sat upon off and out of the display.

"You have a decisive eye, Sakura-san. I'm more than sure that this will suit both of your tastes." She flashed a winning smile in their direction, practically skipping over to the front counter with them in tow, a bemused expression coming into focus over Sasuke's handsome face.

Now he wasn't all too thrilled at the idea of eating cake. He was more than happy to give his share to Sakura, knowing full well what a ravenous beast she could become over confectioneries, simply because he did not enjoy the overabundance of sugar that wafted into his mouth whenever he did feel the notion for something that was not of a savoury disposition or a tomato.

But the fact that she had gone to all of this effort to ensure that he enjoyed the experience too was incredibly endearing, and he couldn't help the small smile that tugged at the taut pull of his lips as he looked down at the soft pink curls falling from Sakura's head. The transition from freezing air to warmth had curled the fickle locks around one another, and Sasuke fought the urge to wrap them around his fingers and _pull_.

Sakura pulled her hand from his so that she could reach into her handbag searchingly for her purse, but Sasuke placed a gentle hand over hers, prying it away from her bag with a smirk slipping unwittingly onto his face. Sakura's eyes snapped up to meet with his, and he held her gaze whilst pulling out is own satchel, depositing the required amount of money into the awaiting palm of Akira, who watched the exchange with great amusement on her pretty face.

"I've got it." Was all he said, softly murmuring those words for her ears alone, before he took the bag from the attending shop owner with a curt nod of thanks and looped his fingers through hers once more.

"Thank you very much! Please come again!" Akira proclaimed with an elegant bow in their direction, Sakura murmuring reassurances that she would definitely come back to sample her New Year cakes over her shoulder as Sasuke led them back into the throngs of pushy people littering their streets like rodents.

Sakura tightened her grip on Sasuke's hand, and he used his body as a shield from both the cold, and from the villagers surrounding them on all sides of whom were ungracious enough to shove her about amidst the mayhem. His warmth flooded into her through their connected palms, and Sakura's cheeks darkened when she felt his pulse beating steadily against her open fist.

It really was a very intimate gesture that they were sharing, and even after two years of dating, she still wasn't used to his heated touch. Sasuke slowed his pace, pulling his hand from hers only to slip it around her shoulder, pulling her from the path of a drunk labourer who was out looking for some fun, his drunken cat calls all falling on deaf ears. Sakura shuddered at the thought of having run into him without Sasuke there to save her from his grasp.

After all, there was only a certain number of times that she could beat up a civilian without getting sent to ANBU for incarceration.

Smiling at Sasuke's chivalry, the two made their way back to his apartment, considering the fact that it was closer than hers was, and it was also more spacious for spending quality Christmas time together―Sakura painfully aware that Sasuke had yet to remove his arm from around her petite frame.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>Sasuke turned the deadlock over, sliding the bolt and chain into place at the head of his doorway before he turned to slip out of his boots, mirroring Sakura's bowed stance as he tugged them off and placed them on the shoe rack against the far wall. Sasuke lifted the grocery bags from their place on the landing into his curled fists, making his way into the expansive kitchen while Sakura followed suit, her feet padding in a light jog as she hastened her pace to catch up with his long strides.<p>

She always felt awed by how utterly spacious Sasuke's place was, even more so when the interior decorating, although sophisticated and very him, was sparse. The raven haired Uchiha was a man of strict discipline, and even in times of peace, he kept very little to his name in case he needed to slip away unseen.

But it was the little touches here and there that told her that he lived here, and that it was home, if only temporary. A stray novel or two left on the expensive coffee table, bookmarked and clearly ready to be continued at any time should he feel the notion whilst lounging on his huge black leather couch. Potted plants, well cared for, decorating the feature wall with vibrancy and colour. An abandoned shirt, hanging carelessly over the back of the matching leather love seat.

But her favourite addition by far were the photographs, displayed tastefully and proudly on the walls all around them. Pictures of his family in abundance (it had taken him two years of contemplation outside of the village before he finally felt ready to accept their loss, and wear their memories on his walls with a smile.)

Photographs of Team Kakashi, from youth to adolescence. Pictures of her, of them, together with pictures of his travels―there were few of those to account for, but the ones that he had managed to capture were truly exceptional, once again summoning the question of why he was so good at everything.

Sakura shook her musings from her mind, turning and making her way into the intimidatingly large kitchen to see Sasuke unpacking their haul and putting it all away into their respective storage places. Whilst he made himself busy with that important task, Sakura nearly giggling over how domestic he looked considering his formidable status in the shinobi world, the pinkette made her way over to the kitchenette, pulling out the dark chocolate lava cake from its bag and setting the box onto the counter.

Bringing out the cutlery with Sasuke's help―he all but slipped himself in place behind her, hand reaching what she could not and placing them in her hands with a brush of his lips against her temple and a contented expression on his face; seems she wasn't the only one thinking about how domestic they looked―Sakura placed the cake onto the china plate. Slipping it into the microwave, she set it for three minutes before sorting out some hot beverages for the two of them.

Normally Sasuke would settle for coffee since he needed the extra adrenaline fix, but at this time of night, having eaten out in public and defied his sensibilities regarding social interaction, he needed to unwind.

"Green tea, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura questioned with a glance in his direction, said man pausing in his proactive movements in order to consider her.

"Please." He affirmed tersely, returning his attention to packing away their shopping for tomorrow's festivities. Smiling in satisfaction at his answer, Sakura prepared the tea with deft efficiency, the kettle hissing at the boil just as the timer went off on the microwave. She pulled out the softly steaming cake, placing it on the kitchenette once more before she poured the hot water into two cups, mixing the tea thoroughly before disposing of the teabags in the bin underneath the kitchen sink.

Lifting the cups by their handles, Sakura carried them out into the living area, placing them on the porcelain coasters that were piled neatly on the coffee table. She turned to retrieve the cake, only to see Sasuke walking out with it in his good hand, the false limb proffering the stainless steel cutlery to her open palms. She took them along with the hand itself in her own, leading him to rest comfortably on the couch. He sat with a grace that she envied relentlessly, his right hand placing the hot plate onto the table whilst his remaining arm wound around her shoulders, pulling her to his side like a magnet would its polar side, his chin coming to rest upon the top of her head.

Sasuke exhaled, deep and weary, his frame losing its former tension as he indulged in the warmth of her body for a moment, Sakura's heart thumping chaotically beneath her breastbone. He had true moments of affection that startled her into silence most days, moments that had the pink haired kunoichi yearning for more, but she had learned to be content with what they did share already, for it was not a commonplace thing for Sasuke to feel cuddly out of his own volition. Sakura inhaled to steady her skyrocketing pulse, Sasuke's heady scent filling her with heat as she rested her temple against the taut stretch of bone and muscle that made up his chest.

"We should probably eat the cake before it gets cold." Sakura intoned softly, an amused giggle following his blunt monosyllabic grunt. She knew how little he could tolerate sweets, but she was determined to make this a memorable experience for him. Still leaning her weight into his side, Sakura reached for the plate, thanking the heavens for having the foresight to leave the can of whipped cream on the table on the way into the kitchen.

Sasuke plucked the can from her hand, scrutinising it with a slight scowl. Sakura laughed openly at the furrow that had settled in his brow, her hand coming up to swipe it from his grasp as he looked down at her with a grimace.

"Do I have to eat it?" Sasuke asked, an almost petulant lilt to his parted lips as she took in his reluctance with a grain of salt.

"Yep!" She responded chirpily, leaving no further room for complaint as she doused the warm cake with a thick spray of the whipped goodness. Sasuke's eye twitched at the sight, stomach curling in discomfort at the daunting sight before him.

"Naruto would probably have referred to that as _one hot cumshot_." Sasuke whispered gutterally into the shell of her ear, amusement clear in his tone as Sakura's head jerked in his direction so fast that she feared that she had given herself whiplash.

"_Sasuke-kun_! That's so vulgar, _oh my god_―" Sakura spluttered, at a loss for words as her cheeks flushed vibrantly in the dimmed lighting of his apartment. Sasuke wore a satisfied smirk on his lips, one that was quickly wiped from his face with a stab of a fork at his mouth, which parted at the sudden intrusion; only to have the bittersweet texture of chocolate melting over his tastebuds. Infused with the coolness of the sweetened cream, Sasuke was pleasantly surprised at how the dessert didn't offend his usual sensibilities.

Sakura tittered at the sight of Sasuke's brow furrowing and raising around him chewing tentatively at the sweetened treat, trying to gauge whether or not he liked it. Slipping a small bite into her mouth, Sakura had to fight the urge to moan aloud at the decadent euphoria that settled in her orifice, her eyes closed for a blissful moment before she felt Sasuke's hand take a hold of hers.

Surprised, her emerald irises raised to meet Sasuke's neutral expression as he cut into the cake and popped it into his mouth with a feigned casualness that set off the butterflies in her stomach. With his hand wrapped around hers, it looked as if she was feeding him, and an unrelenting well of heat settled in her stomach at the insinuation.

"Is it good?" Sakura asked with an expectant smile, already knowing the answer from his previous movement. The raven haired Uchiha paused in his chewing, focusing on her face for a mere moment before he swallowed the morsel with perfunctory proficiency; Sakura's eyes glued to the way his Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he digested the molten delight. She swallowed, mouth unbearably dry.

"I know what would make it better." Sasuke stated with a slow, sinful smirk lifting at his plush lips. His sooty eyes carried an intensity that made the pinkette squirm in her seat, and as he leaned down to her level, Sakura swore her heart was about to combust.

Sasuke tilted his head, observing her up close before he closed the distance between their faces, his tongue swiping across her bottom lip until he had licked off the remnants of chocolate-y cream from her mouth, said orifice falling apart in a stupor of clear surprise. Sasuke took this as his chance to dip his tongue indulgently into her mouth, giving it a deft sweep before he retracted it safely between his own lips, which tugged suggestively on hers on the way. Sakura gasped, her heart pounding hard enough that she swore it would jump into her mouth and straight into Sasuke's waiting arms.

Blushing profusely, the pink haired medic was unable to summon the words to express her bemusement, giving Sasuke the opportunity to take another forkful of lava cake for himself. Only this time he did not have the intention of swallowing it. Without any time to process his sudden closeness, Sakura felt Sasuke's lips close over hers, slanting firmly over her parted orifice and tonguing her with a hot mess of crumbling cocoa and whipped cream that had her insides melting down to the syrupy consistency of the dark chocolate sauce pervading her senses.

She moaned against her better judgement, Sasuke's hands resting firmly on the curved arcs of flesh that were her hips and tracing burning paths over the covered flesh. Suddenly she was wearing way too much, as her skin felt as if it had been set ablaze. A heated trail of sweet saliva trickled down Sakura's chin as she broke away for air, her lungs screaming in protest at their blatant abuse as she swallowed the remants of the melted cake alongside a gulp of oxygen―Sasuke's tongue lapping up the sticky substance with a deft stroke that raised the hairs on Sakura's body from top to bottom.

A shuttered exhalation broke the chain of pants that fell from her mouth, Sasuke quickly filling the room and her lips with blissful silence as another hot mouthful of cake drizzled down her cavern alongside an impertinent tongue. Sakura wound her hands in Sasuke's dark hair, tugging him closer as she pushed the cake off of his lap so that she could settle there in its place, her nearly limp limbs shaking as she hefted her weight over his thighs. Thankfully his hands aided in guiding her there, helping her to settle as they grasped at her upper thighs greedily. She squirmed against him, igniting a fire in his gut that was lusty and made of raw carnality.

Sakura dragged her tongue over his teeth, flicking at his upper lip as she tilted her head heavenward, the string of saliva connecting their mouths dispersing as she ground down on his rapidly hardening erection with a loud keen of approval. His fingers twitched against her covered flesh as his hips rocked up to meet with hers, his lips parting at the sharp flare of pleasure that spiked its way up his spine; falling into his gut and curling ever-tighter as his vision hazed over briefly at the sensations coursing through him. Sakura started when she felt Sasuke yank the hem of her sweater up and over her hips, her stunned expression falling away at the sight of Sasuke's heavy gaze upon her.

She traced the woollen material to its lightly fraying edges, tugging it up and over her head and ridding herself of it on the coffee table as she leaned down to kiss Sasuke once more; feeding him her share of chocolate cake with a desperation that she had not been aware that she had possessed within her. Sasuke kissed her feverishly, hands sliding up the exposed flesh of her stomach before they came to cup her breasts, his fingers pressing into the heavy globes until he felt her nipples straining against the thin material. Sakura shuddered against him, moaning deeply and fervently into his mouth as she rolled her hips sinuously against his own, unsure if the molten heat of the cake was the cause of her fluster or the rapidly approaching threat of treacherous orgasm.

The faster she pulsed her aching centre against his tented pants, the more frenzied her kisses became. Sasuke pulled his lips from her own, trailing his lips in butterfly kisses across her jaw until he had tickled his way down her throat, his teeth nipping at the flesh of her collarbone as he yanked down the flimsy material of Sakura's brassiere with two frisky hands aching to touch her bare (even if only one hand could truly _feel_ her.)

He rolled the pert treasures between thumb and forefinger, tugging them gently and eliciting a spastic jerk of Sakura's whole body atop him, her hands pulling on his hair insistently. He kissed her chin, his right hand trailing down her side until he had retrieved their dessert fork, lying forgotten alongside them, scooping up some of the oozing sauce and softening whipped cream, a playful smile on his lips as he pressed the cold metal against the beginnings of her breasts. The hot liquid sent an electric jolt straight into the tightening coil in Sakura's tummy, and she groaned hoarsely as the sticky substance took the scenic route over her areola and quivering nipple.

Sasuke made quick work of dragging his tongue up and over the camber of her full left breast, his prosthetic fingers working her remaining nipple into oblivion as he twirled his wet glossa around the sensitive peachy flesh of her areola, purposely diverting from her twitching peak as he lathered up the last of the bittersweet concoction with a smirk against her chest. Sakura continued to buck her hips against his, her pants loud and near primal as she scraped her nails against his clothed back.

He swallowed her protests with a searing, mind-numbing kiss that washed all thought from existence in her hazy mind, and the sheer intensity of his ministrations were enough to snap the periliously curling bundle of pleasure in her stomach. Sakura's surprised cry of completion was extinguished by insistent tongue and teeth, her entire frame stiffening while her hips gyrated a broken song of sensate delight against his rigid hips.

The guttural groan that echoed in the depths of his chest mirrored her own heated climax, and as Sakura sagged against him, arms folded loosely around Sasuke's shoulders and face buried in the crook of his neck, she couldn't help but feel content at the thought that perhaps dessert time wasn't so bad for him after all.

As for Sasuke? Well, he couldn't _wait_ for New Years.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p><strong>Ending Remarks:<strong> _Well how about that? It has been a while since I have written anything remotely citrus flavoured, oh god, I hope I did it some justice― D:_

_Now if this doesn't encourage you to leave me a review, then I don't know what will._

_Do look forward to the next update. C;_

_Until tomorrow!_

-x-**R** _i_ n-x-


	13. Mission (Part I)

**Author's Note:** _So we're getting on in this story, and I'm so glad you all seem to enjoy it so much. It really revitalises my inspiration to write fanfiction, especially after the terrible state I've been in these last few years. Thanks for bringing me out of my perpetual slump!_

_As my way of saying thank you, and Merry Christmas, I will be bringing you not one, but two chapters; both interweaved for your viewing pleasure. Please do enjoy._

**My songs of the day: "**Lust for Blood**" by **_GACKT_ **and the "**Armoured Titan OST**" from **_Shingeki No Kyojin_**.**

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><p><em><strong>Melt the Mistletoe<strong>_

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><p><strong>Thirteen:<strong> Mission (Part I)

**_._**

**_Characters: Team Kakashi_**

**_Categories: Action, Adventure, Friendship, Romance_**

**_Rating: M (For language, violence)_**

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><p>"Sakura-chan, look out!" Naruto's gravelly voice, hoarse from screaming, exploded in the atmosphere like a clap of unrelenting thunder, dispersing the heavy sound of metal grating against metal and drawing the focus of those within vicinity of his despairing cry of warning. Sakura responded to Naruto's grating holler with startling proficiency, throwing her weight to the cragged earth at her feet and artfully rolling out of the path of a rogue shinobi's ferocious assault with practiced precision ingrained into her very bones by Tsunade-sama herself.<p>

Evasion was a necessary asset in her training as a medical ninja, and thus maneuvering herself out of harms way was child's play.

The ragged nukenin, drenched in sweat and reeking of the scent of death, came to a shuttering halt, sandals digging into the firm earth and pumping chakra into his soles as he about-faced in the pinkette's direction; only to be met with a fierce chakra-laden punch to the face that shattered his nose and sent the cartilage into his brain.

Death on impact was yet another specialty that Sakura had pounded into her body rigorously over many years of ruthless training.

She shifted her green eyes elsewhere, scouting the area for further threats whilst expanding her chakra out like a makeshift beacon, using it to detect hidden foes all the while throwing her weight forward, using the momentum as a buffer against strategic attacks made from the shadows. She cut through the barren wasteland, sending chakra throughout her entire body as she spring-boarded into the thickened canopy of trees that led away from enemy territory; the pink haired med-nin prayed that luring them into neutral grounds would force them to retreat, or at least play into their awaiting trap.

Heart thumping erratically behind her breastbone, Sakura barelled through the treetops, her lithe form barely settling atop the branches long enough for them to shift under her weight, eyes narrowed as she took note of the multiple flares of unfamiliar chakra signals slipping into focus within her sensory jutsu. She scowled, counting at least ten nukenin on her tail and gaining wind on her. Biting her lip, the pinkette searched her surroundings resourcefully, praying to whatever god was up there that she could evade the troupe of exiled shinobi before they caught up with her and cleaved her through the middle.

A distinct crackling echoed in her eardrum, and Sakura's heart fluttered at the sound of Naruto's concerned voice permeating her senses.

"_Oi, Sakura-chan! Where are you now? Sai and Yamato-taichou finished off the strays, and we need to regroup! Are you okay?_"

Sakura was panting harshly into the microphone, filling the blonde with a deepening pool of dread that unsettled him endlessly.

She was in trouble.

"N-Naruto...! I led the stragglers into the forest, thinking that they'd back down, b-but... they haven't!" Sakura gasped through desperate inhalations, her body ramrod stiff as, out of the shadows, a cluster of shuriken cut through the frigid air and careened toward her.

Recoiling, Sakura threw herself backwards, flipping onto the nearest branch and cursing when the fragile limb snapped under her sharp landing.

"Shit!"

And then she was tumbling towards the dead earth below, ten feet, twenty feet; and a loud _'thud!'_ finally sounded. Having readjusted her posture midair, Sakura was able to land on both feet, but heavily, one of her ankles rolling under the pressure of gravity colliding with matter. A piercing pain shot up her leg, and Sakura fought back the urge to cry out at its relentless sting. Gasping for breath, Sakura settled in an awkward crouching position, resting on her left foot whilst her damaged ankle lay, broken and useless, against the steely ground, her leg folded outwards to accommodate for its discomfort.

"N-Naruto... I think I might be in trouble." Sakura exclaimed bitterly, anxiety filling her to the brim as twelve cloaked nukenin dropped from the sky as if they were made of air, appearing out of nothingness just as quickly as they could slip into it.

Ever the observant soul, Sakura remained tactfully belligerent, emerald irises scanning their apparel for any distinguishing features as she formulated a plan to keep them at bay for as long as possible. At least then, her teammates would have the chance to escape before the bastards could go after them. Tapping into her chakra reserves, Sakura channelled them into her rapidly swelling ankle, body tense and ready to respond to the threat of violence with a few tricks of her own.

"_Hold on, Sakura-chan! We're on our way, okay?! Don't do anything reckless!_" Naruto growled profusely, and Sakura almost smiled, knowing that he had to be wearing that infuriatingly endearing look of concern and determination on his face. Knowing him, he would be here in half the time it had taken her to get this far, running purely on adrenaline after such an intense battle.

Nowadays, it was a rarity to encounter danger on the road, least of all in the form of nukenin; factoring in the evidence of a whole band of rogue shinobi usurping their peaceful lands had led to Kakashi's deployment of several elite ninja squads, in the hope of eliminating the threat before it catalysed into all-out warfare once more. Naturally, the heroes of the Leaf were the first on the list of candidates, and they had been all too happy to oblige.

"More than anyone else out there, I know that the four of you can accomplish at least part of this task," Kakashi had stated firmly, voice resolute and dripping with a confidence that no one in the room could ever begin to dispute.

"Because you are my team. I have grown with all of you, some longer than others, but never the less―I digress. I trust you implicitly to remove this issue from our Bingo Book, before matters transpire any further. It would be nice to avoid any future calamities, after all." He had finished with a smile obscured behind his trademark mask, eyes uncharacteristically somber as he absorbed the expressions of his team in solemn silence.

They had merely nodded in response, an exuberant _"Sure thing, Kakashi-sensei!"_ falling from Naruto's smiling lips as they accepted their mission without a trace of hesitance in their countenances.

And thus here they were, trouncing a group of conspiring evildoers and getting cornered in the middle of neutral grounds because of it. At least Sakura was, as on all sides she had an opponent to contend with. Now had she had her full strength, the outcome would have invariably been different. Her mastery of the Hundred Strengths jutsu had given her a fearsome reputation in the shinobi world, and coupled with her unrivalled skill in medical ninjustsu, she made to be quite the catch for those looking for a couple million ryo for her head.

Obviously this was a well known fact amongst the rogues around her, for they all wore greedy, bloodthirsty smirks on their faces.

Dammit.

Sakura was heavily outnumbered, injured, and short on energy reserves. Soldier pills were of no use to her now, in her fatigued state, and without having made it within the vicinity of her trap zone, the pinkette was in serious shit.

And fuck did her enemies know it, for in their very stances they dripped with impending victory. The cuts and bruises on Sakura's skin stung, but were quickly numbed by both her healing chakra and the frosty air around them. Although it was winter time in Konoha, here in Amegakure it was wet with only rain; and the chill that the droplets spread about through the folds of her bloodstained, torn ninja garb only served as a reminder that winter was just as unpleasant in other countries regardless of how it falls.

A trickle of agitation shot down Sakura's spine when one of the bolder nukenin began to close the tight space between them, her frame absolutely riddled with tension as she coiled for a powerful blow to the overconfident whelp. His straggly hair stuck to his face, the cloying moisture from rain mixed with perspiration doing little for his gaunt disposition as he pulled a kunai from his holster; strapped tautly around his left thigh.

A flicker and then he was gone, reappearing without any warning behind the pinkette. And with no time to react, still heavily incarcerated by her painful leg wound, Sakura could do little to prevent the sharp blow delivered to the back of her neck, followed by that sharpened kunai's descent into her side.

She screamed then, unprepared for the searing sensation of her side being slit wide open, blood gushing from the deep wound just beneath her fourth rib. The blade was shoved in to the hilt, glinting dimly in the darkness overhead, Sakura's hope of survival diminishing rapidly as she coughed up a thick mouthful of crimson all over the ground beneath her face.

A barrage of violent kicks shifted muscle around bone, and Sakura sobbed when her head was slammed mercilessly into the muddy dirt by a grinning kunoichi, who was missing several teeth and was sallow enough that the pink haired medic could nearly see the hot blood running through her veins against the taut pull of skin.

"So much for this bitch's rep for being the strongest kunoichi that ever lived!" One of the rogue's taunted mercilessly, jabbing at her with a katana dulled with countless deaths, ripping yet another pained howl from her bleeding, chapped lips. A chorus of laughter followed at the man's jibe, which quickly transformed into garbled screams of absolute agony as an explosion of chirping birds sounded in its place.

Green eyes swollen and filled with crimson, Sakura was unable to determine the source of the screaming, her throat tightening as reflections of electric blue fizzled over the surface of the her blood, which had pooled around her in expansive puddles.

The pitchy static of lightning filled her ears, then, clear as day as Sakura felt the overwhelming and devastating wrath of Uchiha Sasuke as he tore into the twelve missing nin with deadly precision and the unrelenting desire for their deaths.

His intent to kill washed over her in waves, and for a brief moment Sakura was afraid of his endless surge of violent power; this fear was amplified tenfold when black flames shot up from the ground, spearing through her tormentors like butter and tearing bloodcurdling cries from their lips as they burned in flames that could never be extinguished. The very embodiment of cold, unforgiving vengeance at its absolute worst.

Choking on another mouthful of blood, Sakura moaned in pain, body curling in on itself as a vibrant purple shroud formed around her trembling figure, the makings of Sasuke's Susano'o swallowing her terror and replacing it with relief as the black flames scoured relentlessly into the broken earth beneath her equally broken body. Only ashes remained in the wake of their demise, and Sasuke brusquely shrugged off his remaining rage when he caught sight of Sakura's battered frame. A deep churning settled in his gut, recognised as unbridled anxiety as the raven haired Uchiha teleported to her side in an instant that she could not catch in her weary condition.

Sasuke quickly knelt down alongside her, pulling her gently into his arms as he crooned affectionately into her ear, doing his best to ensure that she maintained her position as best he could.

"S-Sa...s...uke...-k...un..." Sakura murmurmed between gasps of pain. Breathing through broken ribs was nearly impossible, and as she hissed in unrepressed agony, Sasuke brushed frantic fingers through her hair, pressing a solid kiss to her bleeding temple as gently as he could as he cradled her frail figure against his warm chest.

"Shhh, Sakura, I'm right here. Just breathe, baby. Just breathe." Sasuke intoned softly, his voice hoarse as he held back the urge to scream. Not again. He couldn't lose someone he loved so very much. _Never again_.

"Y...ou... came..." Sakura continued weakly, tears leaking traitorously from the corners of her bruised eyes as she leaned into his shoulder with her full weight.

_I'm safe now... Nothing can hurt me here._

The last thing that she had been expecting was Sasuke, to be honest. The last that she had heard from him, he was well past the borders of Kumo, and it was at least a week's travel from there to here. But here he was, defying all of her expectations once more, and she could not have loved him more for being there to save her from death's impending door.

"I did. As soon as Kakashi's messenger summon reached me, I headed back the way I'd come." Sasuke proclaimed, his expression burdened with grief as he cupped her bruised face between gentle palms.

"I'll always come back for you." The words were laced with sincerity, and Sakura had to suppress the urge to sob at the sweetness that accompanied its unspoken insinuation. She was sure that her body would fall apart if she did so.

"I kn...ow... Sasuke-kun." She rasped in response, gripping his hand over her deepest wound as he pumped chakra into her system, desperate to keep it stimulated and alert. It did not matter how much he had to give to her to heal her wounds. She could suck him dry and he would be content, knowing that it had been him that had saved her from the brink of passing.

"Take it, Sakura. Take all of it." _Take all of me_.

Sakura smiled falteringly, the motion stinging at her broken jaw and cheekbone and forcing it from her face as she concentrated on healing the worst of her ghoulish injuries.

A familiar flare of fluctuating chakra alerted the pair of Naruto's impending arrival before he burst through the foliage, fraught with the burdensome load of an endless downpour as the blonde skittered to an abrupt halt on the slippery surface of the bloody massacre at his feet; Sai and Yamato on his toes moments later. Naruto's blue eyes widened in horror at the sheer extent of the bloodshed around him, slowly taking in the presence of powerful black flames roaring even under the thundering rain, before his gaze snapped over to the brightened form of his best friend's Susano'o in the near distance.

His grin was short-lived when he caught an eyeful of Sakura, bloodied, broken and nearly dead in Sasuke's trembling arms, and a cold twist in his gut told him that she was too far gone to be saved now.

"_SAKURA-CHAN_!" No sooner had his feet left the ground when he heard the heavy footfalls of his comrades behind him, quickly falling into step alongside him as he all but cut through the rain without a drop of it touching his boiling skin. And then they were at her side, Naruto falling in a graceless heap alongside the lovers with hollow panic settling over his sun-kissed face.

"Fucking shit-fucking _fuck_! _Sasuke_, what _happened_ to her? _Who the fuck did this_?" Naruto roared vehemently, his cerulean orbs flashing vermillion in the dimness of their temporary shelter from the rain, the blonde not even pausing to marvel over Sasuke's immediate admittance of him into his jutsu.

Said man raised his darkened gaze to meet with Naruto's; he was covered in wounds of his own, one arm curled over his stomach protectively as blood seeped through his jacket to gay abandon. His own pain had been forgotten in lieu of Sakura's, though, and Sasuke could see that resolve in his taut expression.

"Nukenin ambush." Was all he said, but it spoke volumes with the self-depreciating jinchuuriki, who clenched his remaining fist tightly against his thigh before he slammed it into the hard earth beneath them.

"_FUCK_!" The word captured every man's feelings in that moment as helplessness overtook them; all any of them could really do was fold their hands over Sasuke's, pouring what little reserves of chakra they had left into the deathly pale pinkette lying prone across his lap.

"We're right here, Sakura-chan. Hold on. _Please_..."

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.TBC.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p><strong>Ending Remarks:<strong> _Here I giveth you the first part! It was a little short and more on the angsty/action side of things, but it will really set the pace for the next chapter guys! _

_Please bear with me!_

_I will upload the next part in a couple of hours (I have to write it first lol, it'll probably be long to ease your suffering a little bit to boot), so be sure to look out for that. (:_

_Please leave me a review! I hope to see you for some more steamy fluff in the next installment! C;_

_Until later, I guess._

-x-**R** _i_ n-x-


	14. Mission (Part II)

**Author's Note:** _MERRY CHRISTMAS MINNA-SAN! I hope you have had a fruitful day. I sure have. :3 Here is the promised sequel chapter. Please enjoy!_

**Playlist: "**哀しみの讃歌**"**** (**Kanashimi no Sanka**/**_Hymn of Sorrow_**, my favourite **_Sadie_** song) by Sadie and "**Baraado** (**_Ballad_**)" by **Inoue Marina**.**

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><p><em><strong>Melt the Mistletoe<strong>_

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><p><strong>Fourteen:<strong> Mission (Part II)

.

_**Characters: Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto; with mentions of the rest of Team Kakashi**_

_**Categories: Romance, Family, Friendship**_

_**Rating: M (for heavy? coarse language lol)**_

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><p>Sakura woke up aching all over four days later, in a shabby little inn in the middle of nowhere. Dense shrubbery surrounded her for miles, and she knew then that they had made it back to the neutral territory of Ame in one piece. Mostly. Her throbbing body distinctly protested at the notion of being referred to as wholly "there" after her horrific beating, and the pinkette winced when she attempted to shift unsuccessfully into a seated position.<p>

Left eye sealed shut under the voluminous swelling that had puffed up like a bird on display, Sakura rolled her head slightly to her right, taking in the dimmed surroundings lit up by the flickering flame of a waning candle. She was in a small room, no bigger than her apartment's tiny kitchen, boxed in all all sides by decaying walls stained with rain water and peeling apart like flaky tuna. There was a damp, musky scent pervading her senses, hanging ominously with every breath she took into her system as she scanned the remaining space with her bruised right eye. Not doubt she was sporting a killer blacky.

There wasn't much in the way of interior decorating in the bedroom, the entire space consisting of an old, decrepit dresser, a precariously wonky rocking chair in the far corner (which wasn't really all that far away, realistically), and a wardrobe whose door was hanging by a tenuously loose fixture. The key feature, it seemed, was the bed upon which she was lying, and even that was a creature comfort at best. It offered only a little more elevation for her wounds to set and heal, and creaked with every shaky inhalation she took into her lungs. The mattress was thinning out, sagging deceptively deep under her light frame so that she was cocooned in springy cushioning.

The only redeeming feature seemed to be the over-fluffed pillow beneath her head, which offered a level of support that the rest of the squalid room did not; she felt increasingly gloomy in that confined space, even more so since she was limited in her capacity for movement. All in all, Haruno Sakura was incredibly unsettled, and that fickle disposition was evident in every slouching muscle in her broken body. Sighing―and hissing when a sharp, unrelenting pain shot down the length of her trembling figure at the mundane habit―was really the only way to exhale the mounting sense of shame that was quickly filling her after her more than embarrassing encounter with the enemy.

She had fallen into the habitual weakness that had made her so useless on the battlefield in the days of her youth, when she had promised herself that she would not. She had been adamant about standing on equal grounds with her beloved teammates, about having them watch her back for a change, and here she was, one big bruised container of self-assurance and tattered ego.

It wasn't as if the situation could have been remedied in her state. But therein lay the problem; she was a medic nin, the one who had to endure through the battle when her comrades had long since fallen underfoot, the one who had to put them back together again in their time of need, and the disparate sense of unmitigated failure filled her to the brim with contempt and despair.

She had not only been unable to fend off her pursuers, but she had also allowed herself to be lured into a false sense of security and had paid the price for it dearly. A jolt ran through her then.

_Naruto! Sai! Yamato-taichou!_

Were they alright? Had they escaped from harm's way? Amidst total exhaustion, Sakura's frantic thoughts travelled out to the three irreplaceable members of Team Kakashi, her worry nearly tangible as she struggled to raise herself onto her elbows. The rattling of a shaky doorknob had her recoiling in pensive agitation, her hand fumbling for her kunai holster when the door opened with a resonant groaning; a familiar bundle of blonde peering in through the crack of the doorway.

Dull blue eyes brightened instantaneously when they met with misty green irises, a jubilant grin breaking over the roguishly handsome face of Uzumaki Naruto as he nearly threw the door off of its hinges with the force of his casual dismissal of it.

"SAKURA-CHAN, YOU'RE AWAKE!" He all but screeched at the top of his lungs, tears pooling in his eyes as he bounded over to her bedridden form with all the grace of a drunk puppy. Sakura coughed when she tried to stifle her laughter, her mood rising pleasantly at the entrance of the happiest person she had ever had the privilege of knowing. His presence was just what she needed in order to stave off her growing depression.

Naruto's arms were spread out wide, as if he were about to tackle her; at the last moment he pulled himself to a halt, remembering with a sharp flinch the condition that her body was currently in, and so he treated her fragile frame with the delicacy of fine china as he wrapped his arms loosely around her shoulders, pressing a gentle kiss to the dark diamond upon her forehead.

"I'm so glad you're conscious, Sakura-chan. Teme and I were going _crazy_ with worry. I know taichou and Sai were anxious too, but I guess all that specialist training helps them to cover that up―"

"Sasuke-kun is here?" Sakura interrupted his tirade with a stunned look impressing itself upon her face. Naruto paused, pulling back to look at her in the eye.

"Ne... Sakura-chan... you don't remember?"

"Should I...?" Sakura furrowed her brow in thought, wincing when a sharp stabbing pain flickered behind her eyes. Not a good idea right now.

The blonde looked mildly concerned as he ran placating hands through her pink tresses, blue eyes large and expressive as he processed her confusion.

"Uh, yeah? I mean, he did kinda save you and shit. Remember? You were ambushed by the nukenin we were sent out to eliminate in the outskirts of Ame Forest. They were the ones who," Naruto stepped back, appraising her with a scowl that raised the hairs on the back of her neck unpleasantly. "Put you into a coma for four days. Teme was on his way back from Kumogakure to intercept the rogues before they hit the coast and caused more chaos."

He focused on her face, carefully gauging her reaction as he filled in the blanks of her last battle before, well, this happened.

"Sasuke said that when he stumbled into that field, having tracked your chakra signal down, they had already begun killing you." He flinched violently, as if jolted with electricity, and Sakura felt her heart drop into her gut as little flashes of memory danced behind her vision.

_Pain_. Lots of pain. Smirking faces, gaunt and pulled back tautly against jagged bone. Bloodthirsty eyes. Metal sinking indulgently into flesh―_her_ flesh.

And then... a stifling darkness that would not lift, like a veil that had been stitched over her retinas and had grown roots into her mind like parasitic weeds.

"And you know Sasuke. He kind of lost it, when he saw you being tortured like that. Out of the twelve missing nin, none survived his temper tantrum, and quite frankly I'm glad for it. 'Cause if he hadn't finished the fuckers off, I most definitely _would have_." Naruto spat venomously, eyes narrowed into deadly slits as he reminisced on the feeling of her limp, bitingly cold hand in his own as he interlaced their fingers together, feeding her his chakra as if his life depended on it.

Kurama had been more than happy to oblige him, having grown fond the pinkette himself.

"Sasuke did a lot of the leg work before Team Kakashi and I made it to your side. He was pumping his chakra into you like his life depended on it, trying desperately to stop the bleeding and keep you alert so that you wouldn't get hypothermia from all the rain that had sunken into your system before his Susano'o could stave it off." Naruto continued admirably, face admiring in its thoughtfulness as he was reminded of just how caring Sasuke actually was in the face of the woman he loved so profusely.

"Even when Sai, Yamato-taichou and I had poured everything into saving you as well, Sasuke still bore the brunt of it all, making sure to revive you enough for you to heal all of the critical damage. From there, he carried you for four hours before we finally stumbled upon this place. And here we have been ever since, waiting for you to wake up." Naruto finished, eyes searching Sakura's face for any sign of recognition.

The pinkette frowned, digesting his words as electric blue spectres flickered through her mind's eye, the chirping of thousands of birds the reminder that she had needed to jostle her sleeping memory. Black flames engulfing the earth. The vibrant purple hue of Sasuke's doujutsu settling protectively over her stilled frame.

Burning red eyes, filled with the promise of pain and destruction of the worst kind. And then warmth. Sweet nothings, whispered frantically into the shell of her fuzzy eardrums, that even now she could not recall for the life of her. A tender kiss to her throbbing forehead. A hand clasping her own in utter desperation.

_Sasuke-kun_.

Sakura gasped, short of breath as she called out for her renegade lover, who was nowhere in her sights and thus causing her a great deal of distress. Naruto, perceptive enough to read the need in her voice, slipped stealthily out of the bedroom, door closing quietly behind him as his harsh footfalls sounded through the thin barricade.

She moaned in pain when she shifted a little too quickly to one side, throwing her legs over the edge of the bed, only to shudder at the ghastly sight that greeted her tired eye.

Legs blackened with terrible bruising, deep slashes and welts raising the once silken skin in vulgar plumes of scar tissue that unsettled even her specially trained stomach, Sakura knew then that the beating that she had taken had truly been traumatic. And if her body had shut down for four days because of the extent of her injuries, then perhaps she was far worse off than she had first anticipated.

Thankfully she didn't have to ponder for long, for her door was opened with a total disregard for its degradation, the tall profile of her handsome lover filling the narrow entryway with casual ease as his dark eyes―expressing cloying relief―met with her own. Butterflies settled in Sakura's tummy as his intense gaze pinned her where she half sat, half sprawled, at the edge of the small bed she had been occupying for some days now.

When his eyes narrowed imperceptibly, the pinkette knew that he was not happy with her movements, for the displeasure curled upon his lips before even he himself was aware of its presence upon his handsome face.

"S-Sasuke-kun..." Sakura began with a start, her stutter the cause of pain more so than jittery nerves of anticipation coursing through her as the raven haired Uchiha all but strode across the enclosed space, expression neutral as he stopped alongside her shaking form.

Huffing quietly, Sasuke reached out to her, hands absently brushing over her broken cheekbone before both of his hands came to rest upon her shoulders. Without any hesitation, he helped her climb back into the sinking mattress, his expression just short of irritated as he settled carefully alongside her. Her heart thumped painfully behind her bruised chest, and for the first time she cursed his damned thrall over her every molecule to hell and back; for the discomfort it was causing her did not seem worth the effort.

"What the fuck were you _thinking_, Sakura?" Sasuke muttered tersely, tone severe as he locked furious eyes with her. She shrunk back a little from his sudden wrath, the mattress both aiding and hindering her in that respect―she could sink into its depths, but she could not escape his lingering death stare.

Her apple green eyes were wide with panic as he closed the small gap between them once more, his fingertips coming to tilt her chin back gingerly until she was looking into his face without an escape route in sight.

"Running off _on your own_, _knowing_ that they were well-informed _murderers_, and backing yourself into a corner because you didn't _think it through first_ is the single most _foolish_ stunt you've ever pulled, and you should be fucking grateful that I made it to you in time. Otherwise your head would have been pawned off to the highest bidder right about now." Sasuke hissed with an angry sneer in her direction, eyes cold and unrelenting as he released his frustrations on her baleful form.

"You never _think_, just _do_, and fucking dammit it all to _hell_! If you think I'll merely stand by and watch the one I love get herself fucking _killed_ because of her _thoughtlessness_, you are sorely misin-fucking-formed, Sakura." He trailed off, anger dissipating with his shuttered exhalation, tears falling relentlessly from Sakura's aching eyes as she saw the reflection of despair in Sasuke's icy orbs.

He had been scared, frightened to the point beyond reasoning at the thought of losing her, like he had lost his beloved family members years beforehand, and the pinkette's heart clenched tautly in her chest, burning in the flames of potent regret. She had caused this wonderful, gorgeous, precious man such heartache that it weighed his words down with venomous grief, and she knew then that he was not angry at her, but at himself for allowing it to have gotten so far out of hand in the first place.

Sakura reached out a tentative hand, faltering when he stiffened at her movement.

When his sole hand wrapped around her thin fingers, riddled with cuts and fading blemishes, she smiled softly up at him, his left hand coming to wipe away her tears; a little clumsily, considering his consideration of her pain.

"I can't lose you, Sakura. Never you." Sasuke murmured hotly, voice thick with emotion as his expression twisted with overwhelming sadness. He pressed his lips to her forehead, cupping her face timidly, mindful of her botched appearance as he gripped her hand with a strength that left her breathless.

Sakura felt her throat constrict with an influx of raw emotion, and she leaned into his careful caresses, surrendering her battered body to his affectionate ministrations with a watery smile tugging futilely at her heavily bruised jaw. At least she had had the foresight to heal that dislocation before she had passed out, else she'd be in a world of agony far more intense than what she was already immersed in.

"It's... alright... now... Sasuke...-kun." She raised her remaining hand, a sharp flare of pain reminding her of how sensate her body currently was as she ghosted her calloused fingertips over Sasuke's left cheek. Dark, indelible smudges peppered the hollows beneath Sasuke's eyes. He looked positively drained, as if he hadn't slept in weeks. And perhaps he had not, least of all while she was in need of his constant caring. Sakura's heart brimmed with a hot spark of emotion when she considered this. He really did love her.

"I'm... fine now. You're... here with... me."

Sasuke's dark eyes bore into hers, the tortured soul of his youth returning full force as he looked into her one good eye, a pang of horror encumbering his usual judgement, as he pulled her into a tender embrace―face buried in the depths of her shoulder as she felt the first wet spatters of tears sinking indulgently into her sore skin.

"I can't live without you." Sasuke intoned quietly with convinction, arms tightening their grip on the trembling kunoichi as he voiced his inner turmoil with her for the first, and only, time.

"Don't _ever_ leave me. _Please_. Don't _ever_ let go of me."

"_Never_." Was all Sakura had the strength to summon in the form of words spoken; her eyes closing in an attempt to fend off her rising hicups and tears. She clung onto him, ignoring the biting protest of her aching body as she succumbed to the decadence of his unbridled warmth.

Vulnerability was not one of Sasuke's strong suits, but in that moment, Sakura firmly believed that it was his most powerful attribute. And as he held her even closer still to his imperceptibly trembling frame, she knew then that nothing in this world or the next could ever begin to dissuade her of her love for him.

_My love for you runs into forever, Sasuke-kun. Don't ever forget that._

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.TBC.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p><strong>Ending Remarks:<strong> _OKAY, SO I AM LAZY ON THE SMUT, BUT SERIOUSLY GUYS, I NEEDED THE FLUFF AFTER THE WONDERFUL DAY I'VE HAD. LEMONS ARE TOO SERIOUS FOR THE FESTIVE CHEER OF CHRISTMAS, AFTER ALL―_

_All just an excuse to delay the inevitable. But don't worry, because there is a third part to this little trilogy of chapters. So I guess if you want me to work my citric magic, then you shall have to leave me a review! C;_

_Now that I have established the tone for these drabbles, I feel more comfortable tackling_** The First Time**_. /insert melodramatic DUNDUNDUNNN here/ -le shocked gasp-_

_Look forward to it guys. Imma need all the liquid courage in the world to get this one right jesus― D:_

_Until tomorrow!_

-x-**R**_ i_ n-x-


	15. Mission (Part III)

**Author's Note:** _Happy New Year, guys! Apologies for the lateness of this one. I kind of got stuck and then it got really long and fuck―_

_So long, in fact, that I have decided to split this one into two chapters. It was over 20,000 words, UNFINISHED, LOL._

_Thank you so much for leaving a review, guys. To those who have only recently started on their journey with this story; hello and thank you for your time! To those of you who have been with me since the beginning (even more so to those of you whom have supported me since I debuted here lol); all my love and deepest gratitude for your patience!_

**Playlist: "**Call Your Name**" by **_Sawano Hiroyuki_**, "**CODA**" by _the GazettE_ (precious babs), "**Breathe**" & "**Clairvoyant**" by **_Two Steps from Hell_**, "**Sexual Affection**" by _Sadie_, "**Closer to Ideal**" by _D'espairsRay_ (I definitely recommend listening to this one at the fight scenes), "**手嶌葵 ~ 時の歌**" (**_Toki no Uta_**) by **_Teshima Aoi_**.**

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><p><em><strong>Melt the Mistletoe<strong>_

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><p><strong>Fifteen:<strong> Mission (Part III)

**_._**

**_Characters: Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, Team Kakashi_**

**_Categories: Action, Friendship, Romance_**

**_Rating: M_**

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><p>"Sakura, you have to bathe eventually, and you know better than anyone that right now, you aren't capable of doing so alone." Sasuke's blunt monotone carried emphatically in the quietude of the tiny vestibule that said pinkette had been living in for over two weeks now, a trace of hidden amusement tickling his tenor as he turned his dark eyes upon her. There was a quality to his expression that Sakura couldn't quite put her finger on, but if she knew him as well as she thought she did, then it was most likely hesitance.<p>

Her cheeks heated up, a natural response to his very presence, yes, but also due to the implications of his last statement. The logical part of her brain understood the insinuations were based solely around her need to clean her wounds and heal them a little closer to full restoration; after all, she had expended almost all of the seemingly endless chakra reserves that she had had stored away in the near-death debacle half a month prior trying to mend her fractured body. It would invariably take some time to recover her full strength, so in the meantime her teammates had made it a pushy point to baby her back to health one infuriatingly small step at a time.

This was just another one of those over-considerate notions made in the heat of the moment. Only problem was, it involved her getting naked―with Sasuke's help, of course, since she could move minimally at best unaided―in front of her lover. Under any kind of circumstance, Sakura would have been mortified at the concept; she could go her whole life without him ever having to see the unrefined stretches of skin underneath her clothing and not bat an eyelash. So to have the prospect of impending nudity, with her body badly bruised and broken, was a big no-no in her books. There wasn't a force in this world strong enough to persuade her otherwise.

"No way in hell, Sasuke-kun." Sakura stated bluntly, head averted from his line of vision so that she was staring pointedly out of her room's grimy window.

The glass had a long crack splitting through the centre of the once transparent, now grubby, perspex; fracturing out in billowing branches that extended their reaches to the windowpane itself. A thick layer of moldy dust had crusted over its surface, the result of too much exposure to moisture and the elements (rain being the main cause of its appalling condition), and Sakura's stomach had turned when she had tried―and failed spectacularly―to scrub the festering dirt from its surface.

What a sight she must have made for Naruto, who had bounded into her room at her pained shriek, only to find her sprawled on the floor, gasping for air as oxygen evaded her burning lungs whilst clasping her wounded side gingerly with her healed hand. He had hefted her up in his broad arms, a look of panic on his face at the thought of her warding off some washed up closet pervert while his back had been turned, only to end up laughing boisterously at her expense when she had told him, with no short supply of blood in her flaming cheeks, that she had only been trying to clean her window.

"It's not like there's anything worth seeing out there anyways, Sakura-chan!" Naruto had exclaimed between snorts, her petulant pout watering down his amusement if only a little.

"You aren't cooped up twenty-four seven, Naruto. Even dead grass is better than this sad excuse of a room." Sakura quipped morosely, hand gesticulating vaguely at the squalid vestibule with a withering sense of embitterment filling her gut. She was sick of being inside, lying in that pathetic little bed in that hideous little rut that had become her bedroom. The pinkette wanted to be healthy again, ready and rearing for action as the sun shone down on her face. She wanted to feel like she wasn't a burden anymore.

And this evidently showed on her sombre face, for Naruto's expression softened into something resembling sympathy as he wound a comforting arm around her slumped shoulders.

"Ne, Sakura-chan. Don't worry, okay? You're already on the mend, and it'll only be a few days until you have enough chakra to fix yourself up again. So please, cheer up and give me a smile, alright? I need your beauty to wash away the din of apathy that I share and have to live with the rest of our little troupe of idiots." He murmured empathetically, nothing short of a pillar of absolute strength as he squeezed her thin shoulder affectionately between his right palm. His blue eyes were alight with gentle reassurance, and for the first time in days, Sakura felt as if she finally had something positive to believe in. It never ceased to amaze her just how incredible Naruto was.

To have lifted her spirits with only a few meaningful words was wholeheartedly appreciated, and as he removed himself from her side, rolling up his blazing orange sleeves to his elbows with his trademark foolhardy grin splitting his lips wide open, intent on scrubbing her window within an inch of its life in her place, Sakura knew that she was fortunate to have made such a niche for herself in his big, kind heart. As he had an inexplicable place deep within hers as well.

"You'll never recover at this rate, Sakura, and you know it. You need to sterilise your wounds so that they don't fester and become infected. That's basic medical know-how." Sasuke stated bluntly, mild concern lacing his voice as he made his way over to her bedside, his weight sinking indulgently into the mattress as he shifted into her line of sight once more.

Listening to Sasuke telling her to get naked and let him wash her was one thing in and of itself; having to actually face the prospect was on another Richter scale, and as Sakura's heart jump-started into a panicked frenzy at the sight of his neutral expression, she swore to god that this was never happening. Not in this life time or the subsequent ones after this one had past.

"Don't talk shop with the resident medical expert, Sasuke-kun. She isn't in the mood for logic right now." Sakura huffed vehemently, blush brightening the pallid hue of her cheeks (with the exception of her bruising, which had dulled from gruesome to just frightening over the course of the last week) as she scowled prettily at his entertained expression. Sasuke smiled at her, a chuckle slipping through his lips as she shook his head in disbelief; just how stubborn could this woman be?

Leaning back on his palms, Sasuke looked up at the dillapidated roof with humour lining the expressive contours of his face, his breathing deep and even as he crossed his left leg across the mattress.

"Well someone has to act on behalf of your ill-departed conscience, and I figured it was better if it was me than, say, Naruto or Sai?" Sasuke mused with a smirk of triumph in her direction; his victory was assured now. Sakura paled considerably at the thought of bathing in the presence of her bumbling friends.

Naruto had the emotional maturity of a three year old, and was as perverted as any man came, so him seeing her naked was an indefinite _fuck no_. As for Sai? Well, aside from his less than complimentary nature when it came to her appearance on a general basis, and his tendency towards the politically incorrect, he was just a step short of being completely incompetent. So he was a no-go either. That left either Sasuke or Yamato-taichou, and Sakura knew that she never wanted her captain to see her so vulnerable. She would never live it down.

Naturally, there really was only one plausible solution to her impending predicament, and it came in the form of her irresistably persuasive boyfriend Uchiha Sasuke. And even though her head accepted to logicality of his claims, her heart was not in the least bit prepared to bare it all for him; though the intentions were, as stated previously, completely pure.

"I just can't, okay? Please don't push the issue any further, Sasuke-kun! I..." Sakura trailed off feebly, her green eyes tracing the fractured lines of cracked glass fixedly as she hunched in on herself, visibly cowed at Sasuke's persistent goading.

"You what, Sakura?" Sasuke continued, dark eyes returning from their perusal of her room's waterlogged ceiling to settle on her pretty face. Even amidst the blotchy, mottled stains of blood vessels ruptured upon her visage, she was still unbearably beautiful to him, and as he slipped into a comfortable stare-off with the flustered pinkette, he could not have believed it more fervently.

"I... It's... Just no! Ugh!" Sakura hissed, cheeks deepening in colouration as she returned his gaze meekly. Sasuke raised an eyebrow when she wrapped her arms tautly around her bust, tugging on her bed clothes for extra emphasis, realisation dawning on his face as he sat there, stunned into silence.

So _that_ was what she was so worried about? He couldn't have withheld his smirk even if he had tried to. Sakura didn't like the look of _knowing_ in Sasuke's sooty eyes, and as she shifted a little further into her fluffy pillow, he made it clear as day that he understood her unrelenting stubbornness.

"Ah, so _that's_ what has you so highstrung? Being naked in front of me?" Sakura flinched at the tactile bluntness of his statement, her mouth falling open in shock as he laughed at her flabbergasted countenance.

"Your body language is deceptively simple to read, Sakura. And for the record," Sasuke paused, reaching forward to tickle his fingers against the exposed side of her neck, "There isn't anything for you to be concerned about. This is purely business. I don't have any plans of seducing you in the state you're currently in right now." Her lip trembled at the indecent yet subtle leer he sent in her direction as he said that, but she felt her heart jump when seriousness settled in place of the playfulness.

"Make no mistake, Sakura. I _do_ want you, one day. But for now, I just want you to recover, more than anything in this world. I hate seeing you so fragile." It was an incredibly sweet thing to say, and the implications of his words were not lost on her. So he _did_ want her. That assurance alone, coupled with the sincere inflection reflected in his handsome face, was enough for Sakura's defences to crumble just a little.

She was still reluctant to expose herself to him in such an intimate way, especially if her current condition put him off of ever looking at her nude again, but just this once, she wanted to trust in him completely. Biting her lip, clearly hesitant, Sakura raised her intent gaze to his own once more, mutely nodding in his direction; stunning him into further silence.

He had been trying to coax her into the bath for just short of a week, and not once in that time had she conceded to his coercion. The fact that now of all times she had agreed left him a little tongue-tied; perhaps all she had really needed was a frank talking-to, one that was honest and reassuring. Sasuke sighed softly, relief filling his features as he leaned forward, resting his forehead against her own.

"Finally, some sense has been ascertained." He murmured gently, eyes closed as he allowed his warmth to sink into her indulgently for a moment. Sakura huffed, affronted by his claim. And after he had made the effort to comfort her through clarification!

"I'll go run the water." Sasuke continued with a small smile on his lips, lips that swept across her own fleetingly before he stood from his seated position alongside her, his long legs carrying him elegantly and quickly, driven by purpose, to her room's door, the barricade closing quietly behind him as he strode down the hallway to the private bathroom on their floor. There weren't many rooms or customers at this "inn" of sorts, and thus those who did have the great misfortune of staying there whilst in search of rest had the distinct displeasure of sharing a communal bathroom. Never the less, there was a lock on the door for comfort's sake, and Sasuke exhaled his pent up frustration with their homestead.

Had he not been completely depleted of all energy reserves, he would have carried her to somewhere where she could have received the medical attention that she required, but since that had not been the case, he had to make do with the first thing that he could find. Oh yes, it was a hovel, but it had kept her alive so far. And for that, he was eternally grateful.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p>Sakura's nerves were highly agitated as she waited with bated breath for the moment that Sasuke returned to her. She had tried her best to stave off her anxiety by gathering herself a change of clothes from her wilting pack left within arm's reach on her room's dresser; but when her fingers curled around a pair of lacy undergarments, her panic attack returned full force―her face a blazing mess of vibrant bruises warmed by a heated blush. Not only was he going to strip her bare and wash her, but then she had the distinctly mortifying epiphany that he was going to have to dress her as well, panties and all.<p>

_Oh god―_

The rattling of the doorknob snapped her alert gaze upwards, a painful sense of awareness filling her with fear as Sasuke opened the door, face carefully stoic as he made his way over to her stilled form once more.

"Do you have everything you need?" He questioned curtly, head motioning towards the bundle of clothes clasped to her chest. When she hummed in affirmation to his enquiry, he nodded in apparent satisfaction, kneeling down onto the sagging mattress with the intention of lifting her into his arms. Helping her to wind her arms around his shoulders, Sasuke slipped one arm beneath her legs, being especially careful of her shattered right leg (which was healing much slower than the rest of her injuries) as he braced her back against his remaining limb.

Shifting her cautiously in his embrace in order to reaffirm his grip on her petite frame, Sasuke stood erect once more, dark eyes searching her face for any signs of discomfort or pain. When only a twitch flickered precariously against the taut pull of Sakura's unscathed cheek, Sasuke continued onward, satisfaction settling in his stomach as he carried her out of her room with as much care as he could muster. It might be construed as pathetic on Sakura's part, but she could not suppress the bubbling excitement of having finally left her quarters for the first time in two weeks, and it showed clearly on her face and in her posture―both of which had eased into a transient lull.

It felt as if she was floating on air, the way Sasuke strode through the atmosphere like gravity did not exist, like he was the only one capable enough to defy its pull. Wordlessly, Sasuke toed open the half closed door to the bathroom, stepping into the poorly lit vestibule without a glance at the eerily quiet pinkette in his capable grasp. Instead, he made short work of lowering her onto the toilet; using it as a makeshift stool as he made sure to bolt the door firmly shut behind them.

Sakura took the time to absorb her surroundings. Whitewashed walls, surprisingly clean in comparison to the atrocious pit of filth that her room seemed to adopt so casually; tiled neatly with bleached grout filling the cracks between each polished square.

A black basin, large enough to house someone of Sakura's stature with room to wiggle their toes, molded into the adjoining wall. An intricate, colourful mosaic emblazoned the inside of the clean tub until it bore semblance to an abstract painting of a multi-coloured rose, the textured glass sealed beneath a layer of clear resin. Water filled the bath about half way up, steam rising from the heated surface and putting a fresh flush on the pinkette's rosy cheeks. She noted absently that there was a portable showerhead strung up precariously at the end of sturdy steel piping, should patrons feel the inclination to bathe with haste (in all honesty, the bath was too small for most of the customers to fully utilise comfortably.)

To her utter dismay, there was no shower curtain to shield her from prying eyes―specifically Sasuke's intimidating gaze. Instead, it seemed that the shower had been designed to run off into a drainage rut in the centre of the cold tiled flooring, meaning that a curtain would be obsolete and merely a creature comfort for those uncomfortable with the sight of their own body in the mirror directly across from the elected bathing space. Sakura felt herself struggling to swallow, her mouth gaspingly dry as she returned her attentions to the raven haired man standing not a foot away from her.

For the sake of her insecurity, Sasuke had remained blessedly aloof to her discomfort, not a shred of amusement on his stern face as he reached out to tilt her chin up to face him fully.

"How can I help you, Sakura?" Sasuke intoned softly, his voice lacking its usual bite as he locked fervent eyes with her own. He wanted to aid her however he could, so as to lessen her pain and make her life just a little easier to cope with. Her heart thumped frantically behind her breast as she caught the trace of concern in his dark eyes. A mixture of terror and anticipation seized her as she parted her lips to speak, voice wavering under the stutter of her nerves making their grand reappearance into her system.

"C-Clothes... I-I can't..." She quailed, unable to coherently form a suitable response to his question, but Sasuke understood better than anyone what it was that she was trying to communicate to him.

"I can do that." He murmured carefully, his eyes drawn to the thin material of her baggy white t-shirt. This would certainly prove to be difficult to manouevre her out of without hurting her in the process. Brow furrowing in consternation, Sasuke raised his hands to the hemline of the crumpled bed-shirt, expression schooled into neutrality as he peeled it slowly up from her hips, making a point of avoiding brushing his appendages up against her sore sides in the process.

Once the flimsy material was bunched up beneath her armpits, Sasuke gently tilted her weight towards him, the pinkette's hands naturally coming to rest upon the broad set of his shoulders so as to anchor her into equilibrium. Sakura flinched a little when he slipped the cotton against her raw hide, biting her lip to stifle her hiss of pain as he whipped it down her bare arms and threw it onto the ground beneath their feet. So far it wasn't as uncomfortable as she thought it was going to be, what with the methodical way in which Sasuke was approaching this task, and Sakura tried envisioning removing her own clothing with her torn scapula.

She shuddered. Definitely not a pain she ever wished to experience firsthand.

Naturally she was unable to wear a bra in her current condition, which left her a fumbling mess of scarlet as she watched Sasuke's concentration slip for the briefest of moments as he took in the hefty camber of her bare breasts exposed for his viewing pleasure. Unwittingly, her peachy nipples hardened in response to his intent staring. But that moment was fleeting at best, as he readjusted his focus to the curved arcs that were her hips, his hands helping her to stand before he bent over and pulled both her cotton shorts and panties down her deceptively long legs with a quick flourish of his wrists.

Sakura tried to squeeze her thighs together to cover the thatch of pink curls that sat abashedly upon her pubis, her green eyes glittering despairingly amidst her embarrassment as she stood there, completely naked and completely vulnerable to him―but the sharp burning in her right leg cancelled out all previous bashfulness as she nearly sobbed from the pain. Sasuke took her into his arms, supporting her full weight alongside his own as he led her over to the steaming basin with worry etched into the lines of his gorgeous face.

Without preempt, Sasuke scooped her up into his embrace, legs dangling over his left arm as he lowered her quivering form into the warm water.

At first it seemed unbearably hot, searing against the ghastly wounds on her body like corrosive acid, but after sinking into it fully, the pain ebbed away in favour of a prickly tingle that warmed her to her toes. She relaxed into it, for a single, blissful moment forgetting about Sasuke's presence in the room as she closed her eyes and sighed quietly into the resonant bathroom; the dripping of water from the faucet echoing loudly in the din.

Sakura was reminded of the Uchiha's presence when he ran a tender hand through her rosette tresses, eyes deeply affectionate as he traced his right thumb over her puffy lips without preamble. To his absolute credit, not once did his eyes stray from her own, in a show of respect so deep for her body that she felt butterflies erupt dangerously low in her abdomen. He truly was the definition of a gentleman, and as he stood from his perch on the sill of the bath alongside her to collect the fresh wash cloth and conditioners from the shelf upon the bath's alcove, Sakura was reminded of just how much his courteousness had been ingrained into him as a child.

Even when they had been assigned to Team Kakashi, Sasuke had always upheld himself to the standards of his clan, remembering his manners when they were called for effortlessly and without hesitance. This was certainly no different, as not once had he gawked at her openly; inconspicuously, perhaps, but what she didn't know wouldn't necessarily kill her.

Sasuke returned to her side with haste, lowering himself onto the ledge once more with an eloquence that very few, much less men, could ever hope to muster in their gait, his prosthetic hand dipping the washer into the lukewarm water before he raised it once more, squeezing out the water over the bared skin that had not been touched by it already. Sakura moaned softly, the feeling of fresh, clean water rolling languorously over the planes of her body a welcome change of pace.

Sasuke brushed the cloth against her raw skin cautiously, peeling away the grime of old scabs scarring over the open sores with a gentleness that surprised her, his hand dipping back and forth into the shallow depths just short of her exposed breasts. The heat of his remaining palm was dulled by the application of a cold, gelatinous substance that she soon recognised was body wash, scented softly after honeycomb and green tea as he rubbed soothing circles against her bare back, fingers ghosting seductively over her spine in the process.

It all felt quite wonderful, if she were to be blatantly honest with herself, as she peeked up at him through long eyelashes. His face was pensive, lost in thought as he soothed her aching wounds with tender caresses that raised the hairs on her arms and neck without a qualm to prevent it from happening. The once clean water darkened with an amalgamation of grime. It was true that she had opted to sponge herself off in the easiest places to reach with the help of her nagging, overbearing teammates, but for the most part she had been too weak to manage a bath unattended, let alone at all.

So even if she was currently naked in front of the man she loved more than anything else in the world, where unending embarrassment was her closest companion, the burden of not having bathed for such an extended duration had left her without a word of protest. If this was a means to an end, then she would take it―even though she was too embarrassed to admit that Uchiha Sasuke washing her all over was one of her deepest, darkest fantasies, a secret that she would keep locked away in Pandora's Box forever, if need be.

Sasuke tilted her head back via her chin, and Sakura acquisced withought complaint, eyes falling to an unburdened close as he ran the warm water down her throat. His dark orbs followed the impermanent substance down the arch of her slim neck, observing with an almost painful eye for detail as the clear liquid trickled down between the valley of her pert breasts, down her slim torso and back into the translucent membrane from which it had come from only moments beforehand. He swallowed inaudibly, fingers tracing the exposed groove of her shoulder as he dabbed at her throat with the sopping wet cloth; wishing fervently to replace it with his lips, but refraining from doing so with an internal scowl at his inner animal.

Funny how she was the only one that really, truly, brought it out of him.

Sakura's skin tingled with every brush of his hands against her, her mouth falling open in mute awe as he dragged the cloth over her breasts; nipples screaming in protest at the rough material scraping over them without a secondary tour back over them. Sasuke's thumb unintentionally applied additional stimulus to the oversensitive buds, and Sakura shuddered openly in response, his eyes widening in surprise at the strong display of arousal that he had elicited from her. He had not been expecting that.

"Sakura?" He called out her name softly, breaking the spell that had fogged over her rational mind in the wake of his ministrations, her green eyes flying open as mortification and shame coloured her face. Sasuke looked a little unsure of how to broach the sudden flair of tension that had settled between them, but he tentatively saw to her wounds, bathing them with a care that defied his fierce reputation as one of the strongest shinobi to have ever lived.

Sakura sucked in a harsh breath, not wrought of discomfiture or pain, but of stunned bemusement as she sat at attention for him; rigid and as still as a statue as he massaged the soapy suds of lathered cream into her pores with renewed focus.

Once Sasuke was sure that she was scrubbed clean at the top of her body, he slipped his hands into the water once more, a startled shriek leaving the pinkette's lips as he hefted her body up and onto his lap; the warm water weeping its way through the thin material of his black khakis as her firm bottom pressed appealingly against his crotch. He internalised the deep, animalistic throb bubbling its way into the pit of his stomach, arms winding firmly around her waist so as to lock her in place there.

Sasuke dipped the spongy cloth into the tub once more, drizzling a generous glob of body wash onto its surface before he gingerly peppered it down her right leg. Starting from her upper thigh, Sasuke twirled the cloth in lazy circles over the tender flesh, angling his wrist so that it could sink provocatively between her legs. Sakura's heart stopped beating for a moment in her mouth as his calloused fingers skimmed over the slippery, wet limb, brushing carefully over the welts that had blemished it so starkly as he made his descent further still, slipping under the curvature of her leg as he peeled away the layers of perspiration, mud and pus with deft swipes of his wrist.

He was all business, pausing for only brief moments to admire the feel of her beneath his fingertips. Oh how tempting it was to lay soft kisses over the exposed juncture of her neck, shoulder, spine, kneecap...

_Fuck..._ Sasuke bemoaned internally with a grimace, dark eyes burning with an intensity that had nothing to do with his desire to get her well again. No, it looked a lot more like him flattening her out over his splayed lap and slipping his hands over and within places completely inappropriate for one in such an alluring position and condition. He bit his lip, out of Sakura's line of sight, as he continued to soak her injured limbs with suddy water that ran off nearly black. She was absolutely filthy, by no fault of her own of course, and it made Sasuke's obsessive compulsive monster rear its ugly head in protest to her less that cleanly state.

Sakura watched as Sasuke manipulated her aching limbs for her, settling them ankle-deep in the dirty water as he swivelled her around on his lap until her left side was pressed deliciously against his stomach. She opted for keeping her mouth shut when he reached above him for the flexible showerhead just out of reach; his fingers grazed the bottom of it in futility for a few moments before he grunted in displeasure.

Luckily it was an inanimate object, that need not fear the wrath of the seething Uchiha heir, as he all but yanked it down with a little boost from his lengthy torso. Unfortunately for her (at least for her heart, anyway), this movement meant that she too would be pulled in closer to Sasuke's imposing frame. Sakura spread her palms out against his solid chest in a gesture of keeping the distance between their bodies mutually comfortable, face deepening in its rosy hue as the top of her head bumped against his turned chin.

"Tch!" He grunted at the unexpected impact, obsidian orbs trailing back to her fidgeting face, which was evading meeting with his own as she pushed a little harder against him in the hopes of gaining some much needed distance from his solid figure. His rugged appearance, lightly soaked with the impression of her body locked against his, was almost unbearable, and the smouldering look in his hooded eyes had her squeezing her thighs a little closer together than usual.

It was unfair how gorgeous this man was. Even bloody and nearly completely broken, Sasuke made for quite the sight.

"S-Sorry, Sasuke-kun. I-I didn't mean―It was―!"

Sasuke scoffed, nonplussed by the impact, his hands returning to their task of removing the thick layer of grime from her petite frame. He turned the faucet on, fingers dancing on the rim of the metal showerhead as he gauged the temperature, adjusting it simultaneously when he deemed it too hot for her blistering wounds.

Once he had settled on the perfect level of heat-to-cool, Sasuke shifted her weight upon him, wrapping one arm firmly around her naked waist as he used the remaining appendage to hold the spray over her legs, washing away the hefty burden that the cloying filth had left on her raw skin. Both parties were surprised to note that her legs, once removed of their heavy cloak of dirt, were not nearly as damaged as they had first appeared.

It seems that her gradual treatment of them had spurned on the natural regeneration process that was so inherent within her system that she had forgotten that it had even existed. She had become so accustomed to healing herself of her injuries that she had lost her affinity with the pre-instilled nature of healing in the neutral body. It was a pleasant surprise, even if her discomfort was still very real.

Sakura glanced up at Sasuke from her peripherals, biting back a sweet smile at the look of gratification that had made itself plainly evident of his devilishly handsome face. Exhaling in visible relief, Sasuke reached for the bottles of shampoo and conditioner, his right hand, which had been, up until that point, leaving a searing imprint against her flushed side, coming up to douse her hair in the thick gelatinous substance.

"Can you hold your weight for a minute, Sakura?" Sasuke asked with a look askance at her pretty face, eyes carefully respectful as he held her gaze with his own. The pinkette teetered only a little on his lap as he removed his supporting arms from her frame, and so he took that as his go-ahead; brushing her thick tresses up onto the top of her head, the raven haired Uchiha gently massaged the suds into her hair, making sure to do a thorough job of rubbing it into her scalp before he left it rest for a moment.

He took the opportunity to fill that time with washing off his hands, which returned to cup her waist moments later. Sasuke allowed her a moment of blissful contact, upon which he pulled her flush against his chest, her soapy temple brushing against his chin and leaving bubbles in her wake. Sakura tried, and failed, to suppress her girlish giggle at the sight, which only furthered his desire to tease her relentlessly.

His dark smirk wiped the smile from Sakura's face as he raised his hand into her hair, gathering a handful of the soapsuds before he smeared them without further adieu on her healed cheek, fingertips trailing over her parted lips as he countinued to spread it down the length of her neck. Being ticklish did not aid her in her quest for control, and she laughed outright when he flicked his suddy fingertips against her exposed cleavage with a wicked smile settled firmly on his amused visage.

"Ne, Sasuke-kun! Please stop! That tickles!" Sakura proclaimed loudly, squirming out of the reach of his fingers until she had nearly toppled off of his lap altogether; he caught her with the speed that only he had mastered over the years, hauling her into his protective embrace as she calmed the racing of her heart at her nearly potential slip.

"You alright?" His husky tenor trembled a little even in its vast sternness, and Sakura merely nodded in supplication. She was fine now. The tension was lost in Sasuke's frame as he lowered her once more into the now cold water, lips pulled into a taut line as he handled the showerhead once more with practiced precision. He washed the residue from her hair, running his sole hand through her hair as she bowed her head forward in an attempt to ease his efforts somewhat.

It only took a few minutes, and once he was done, Sasuke returned the extendable showerhead to its mantle overhead, switching off the water as he bent over her small frame, scooping her up without any qualms from either of them. He placed her shuddering form on the toilet seat once more, turning to retrieve the fluffy white towel (she distinctly recognised that it was his, and her stomach turned pleasantly at the generosity of her lover; he had never liked to share, after all) hanging on the doorknob. His strides were quick and effortless, and in mere seconds he was back at her side, attentive to her need for warmth as he draped the towel unceremoniously around her shoulders.

"Thank you, Sasuke-kun." Sakura affirmed graciously, pulling the warm cloth closer to her trembling figure as he ran comforting hands down her arms, trying to return some heat into her body. It mightn't be snowing in Amegakure, but it was still bitingly cold outside; so cold, in fact, that hail stones had begun to fall over the last few days as a reminder that it was still winter time.

The room was frigid, and thus the comforting warmth of her bath had been expunged with relative swiftness as it settled there for the night.

"We need to get you dried off and dressed quickly, Sakura. Can't have you freezing to death on me." Sasuke quipped mirthlessly, eyes displaying his complete awareness of that possibility becoming an actuality, and Sakura nodded in mute agreement.

Her embarrassment had quelled somewhat, but it returned to warm her bloodstream as he helped her to stand; using him as her buoyancy, Sakura leaned into his touch as he towelled her down. Her lip protuded stubbornly as a means of simmering down her rising mortification as Sasuke smoothed the material sinuously over her heavy breasts, the friction pebbling the pert nipples beneath unsuspecting fingertips until they thrummed with resounding pleasure.

Her breath hitched as he descended down her body, the towel bunched up between his palms as he rolled it over her hips and bottom, making a beeline for the crevice between her closed legs; his dark eyes remained indifferent to her postured rigidity, and without pause for thought, he dipped the coarse fabric between her thighs, parting them gingerly so as to prevent any pain from his rubdown. Sasuke was deft in pulsing the material against the thatch of hair between her legs, not lingering long enough for Sakura's internal meltdown to kick into overdrive as he whipped it down her legs and patted them gently dry.

Lifting her feet one at a time onto his propped up knee, Sasuke towelled them down until she was able to stand without the impending threat of a fall on the slippery tiles. Now significantly warmer―and it had nothing to do with no longer being sopping wet―Sakura stepped away from Sasuke's prone form, giving them both some much needed space as he looked up at her from beneath long, sooty eyelashes.

"Feeling better?"

"M-Mm." Sakura punctuated her positive response with a smile, nodding slightly as he stood to look down at her once more.

"Then let's get you dressed and ready for bed." Was all he said in response, reaching over to her pile of nealtly folded clothes sitting on the bathroom sink. Sakura stood erect and eerily still as he proffered her underwear without so much as a smirk on his face. He trailed his fingertips over the swell of her hips, down her outer thighs and between the dip behind her knees before he was prodding insistently at her ankles.

Pressing the flats of her palms against his shoulders once more, Sakura carefully lifted her right leg, stepping into the hole and helping Sasuke to lift it up and over the camber of her kneecap. Unfortunately, the process was not nearly so simple for her remaining leg, as she had to rest her full weight on the shattered limb. Her pained cry saw her stumbling off to her side, Sasuke sliding in place beneath her as he broke her fall with his own.

The first thing that Sakura registered was the warmth of his skin as it sunk into her own, and the feel of his muscles rippling beneath her splayed fingers and bare breasts. Her eyes widened significantly, her nerve endings all but frazzling out as she struggled to remove her weight from Sasuke's wincing form.

"Oh my god, Sasuke-kun! Are you okay? I'm so sorry, I lost my footing and―"

"Don't worry about it, I'm fine." Sasuke grunted perfunctly, pushing himself up onto his elbows as his tousled bangs fell into his eyes. His wet shirt clung to the taut musculature of his stomach, riding up his abdomen and exposing the deep lines jutting out from his pelvis; cutting down beneath the hem of his pants in delicious symmetry.

His expression was a mixture between pained and exasperated, but he made no further vocalisations resembling a complaint as he pulled her forward until she was straddling his hips. Without preamble, he reached for the hem of her panties, hanging loosely around her right ankle, tugging them up and over her knee, over her parted thighs until they finally fit snuggly around her vivacious hips.

Sasuke's fingers dug into her sides indulgently, her cheeks flushing a flattering shade of pink as he let them linger momentarily, before he retracted their hold on her and grabbed the loose night gown that had fallen with them. Now sitting, Sakura still firmly locked in place on his hips, Sasuke lifted her arms over her head, feeding her limbs through the corresponding holes before he yanked it down over her head; his hands cupping her bare breasts in a naughty tease that left her squealing in surprise.

"My payment for my services." He stated with a humoured smirk in her direction, before he tugged the nightie down over her lithe figure, obscuring her once more from his ravenous gaze.

"S-S-Sa―W-Wha―" Sakura babbled incoherently, her face the epitome of flabbergasted as she observed the smiling face of her lover with wide green eyes.

"Time for bed." Sasuke proclaimed emphatically, pressing a kiss to the tip of her nose before he hefted her over his shoulder, pushing himself onto his feet before he swooped out of the quietude of the bathroom―Sakura in one arm, her ragged clothes under the other.

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><p>Yamato paced the expanse of Sakura's small room, running over their plan of return to Konoha. It had been a week since the bath incident, and Sakura had since gathered enough chakra in her reserves to heal the remnants of her wounds; thankfully none had become septic over the course of her two weeks bedridden in this shabby inn in the middle of nowhere, making it a lot simpler to recover from her trauma.<p>

As much as it begrudged her, the pinkette was grateful for Sasuke's pushy insistence to bathe her every day after the first time, because she had recovered her strength with due haste. And now here she was, fully clothed in her usual ninja attire and ready to move out with her teammates.

"Because of recent circumstances," Yamato sent her a pointed glance filled with concern, which made her smile broadly in response to his caring disposition. "We have fallen behind on our allotted schedule. Never the less, now that Sakura is well again," he trailed off meaningfully, directing his imperative onto the males of their squad with stern dark eyes. Naruto straightened stiffly, visibly disconcerted at the unpleasant glower in their Captain's eyes as he stared them down individually.

"We need to get back on track. Kakashi-sama has sent out a summons for our immediate return, so we shall head out at twilight and make our way back throughout the night. He specifically requested your presence, Sasuke-san, so you shall return to the village with us." Yamato continued with zest, his expression bland as he accepted Sasuke's curt nod with one of his own.

"I planned on going back anyway." Sakura's surprised glance in his direction summoned a soft smirk in response. "Can't let this one out of my sight."

Sakura huffed, affronted by his commentary, but he only shook his head from side to side, smiling imperceptibly as he returned his gaze to the others; they all looked amused by his remark, and when she sent a venomous glare their way, they swallowed their mirth in exchange for charades of blatant disinterest. Better.

"You have ten minutes to gather your belongings and meet me in the foyer downstairs. We head out then. Tardiness is no excuse. I will leave you behind if you loiter. Got it, _Naruto_?" Yamato addressed the startled blonde with a fixed glare, expression ominous as he bore holes into the side of his cowed head.

"I won't tolerate another one of your escapades, you hear me?"

"Oh come _on_, taichou! That happened _once_―" Naruto whined petulantly, arms gesticulating wildly about his lanky frame as he made his case. Yamato shot it down immediately with a retort of his own.

"No, it happened _seventeen_ times. Half of those consisting of attempts at peeking into the women's locker room after peak hour bath times; the rest being knocked out cold by Sakura for said shameful peeping." His blunt dismissal dripped with disapproval as he dared Naruto to challenge his authority. Mercifully, Naruto had the decency to look sheepish, his tanned cheeks flushed as he scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"Oh, yeah. Right. That. Got it, taichou. Won't happen again."

"That's good to hear, Naruto. Because you know what will happen if you don't obey my orders like a good little jinchuuriki?" Yamato quipped sagely, expression pleasant even when his next words were anything but.

"I'll sic Sakura on you so fast that your head will split open from the force of the internal haemorraging she unleashes upon your skull." He balked at that, paling considerably as his neck robotically clicked its way towards Sakura, who sat there with a sadistic smile on her pretty pink lips.

"Don't you know it, taichou." Was all she said, raising the hairs all over the blonde shinobi's body. Crap. She was on board with this perverse attempt at punishment, and it was more than enough to have his insides churning with impending dread. He always fucked up enough to be the cause of Sakura's dire wrath. He needed to be especially careful now, since it looked as if Sasuke and Sai were siding with her poisonously sweet disposition. Their thoroughly pleased expressions certainly didn't go amiss.

_So much for bros before hoes..._ _Not that Sakura-chan is one!_ Naruto amended quickly, shrinking a little further behind Sasuke's imposing stature as Sakura directed heated daggers his way―as if she had read his mind. The knowing scowl on her face pretty much attested to this.

"Now hop to it! The clock is ticking..." The brown haired ANBU operative threw back over his turned shoulder as he strode out of the pink haired kunoichi's room without another word, the door closing over as Sai stood and stretched from his spot at the end of Sakura's creaky bed.

"What say you, Dickless? Shall we go pack now, or do I get the pleasure of seeing a preemptive beatdown courtesy of Ugly?" Sai intoned pleasantly, smile placing itself easily on his lips in a genuine display of humour that had Sasuke coughing into his hand; obviously trying to disguise his chuckle of amusement at the inky haired artist's witty quip. Naruto openly glared at the elder male, eyes mirthless and clearly irritated as his mouth formed an angry curl bearing semblance to a grimace of pent up rage.

"Shut it, fuckface! Move your ass before I shove my foot up it so hard you'll shit blood for a week!"

"Ah, but you'd like that, wouldn't you Dickless?" Sai jeered with a faux sneer in his direction, openly entertained by Naruto's mounting anger as he baited him all the way to the door, the blonde stalking after the ex-ROOT member without a glance spared at the two remaining friends behind him. Their loud arguing could still be heard from down the opposing end of the hallway, and Sasuke's chuckles were met with outright laughter on Sakura's part.

"Idiots..." Sakura breathed out with a giggle, rolling her eyes as she heard the telltale signs of furniture being tossed about from the boys' shared room.

Sasuke openly cringed, face the picture of martyrdom as he straightened himself from his trademark slouch against the opposite wall; intent on preventing any major damages from occurring, lest they have to fork out the moolah to replace the broken goods. He cast Sakura a fleeting glance, hand coming up to finger the tips of her long tresses between thumb and forefinger, before he let his hand fall limp at his side, expression carefully schooled into neutrality as he excused himself from her presence.

"I'll see you downstairs." At her meek nod, Sasuke turned on his heel, a satisfied smile on his face as he slipped out of the narrow doorway and sidled down the hall after his moronic companions with an exasperated twitch shifting the skin around his left eye.

_And I call them my friends? Ridiculous. Ludicrous. Idiotic, like them. Tch._

Sakura watched him leave with a twist of delight curling in her tummy. He was coming home with them. With her. _For_ her.

The girlish smile that formed on her plush lips was incomparable as she set to work shoving her belongings into her wilting napsack strewn on the bed alongside her, painfully aware of their allotted time passing her by.

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><p>Team Kakashi took to the treetops the minute they had all gathered at the assigned meeting place; paying the host for his troubles before they became one with the shadows of the inky black night, rain pouring in a relentless barrage against their exposed flesh and weighing down their heavy cloaks with the sheer force of its impact. Sakura shivered a little at the biting chill that had begun to take root in her bones, her teeth chattering softly as she propelled her weight rapidly through the thick foliage, intent on keeping pace with the restless shinobi accompanying her.<p>

Sasuke matched her stride easily, remaining vigilent in his perusal of her recovered form whilst also surveying their surroundings for any impending threats. The sharingan in his right eye was blurred beyond distinction from the downpour, whilst his rinne-sharingan spun sluggishly in his remaining iris, searching for any unexpected flairs of hostile chakra in the area around them. So far, he had found none, and he was glad for it. Even though he knew Sakura could protect herself without any problems, he wanted to ensure her safety at any cost; she had nearly died in her last battle, and he would be damned if he ever let her fall into that death-trap again.

Naruto led their fast-paced tirade, throwing his full weight forward on all fours as he slipped into Sage mode; it was important to ensure that no one else he loved became the victim of unsuspecting violence, and as he barrelled through the trees with a renewed sense of purpose, he failed to note the airborne kunai cutting through the heavy rain until it had wedged itself in his bicep. He howled in pain, feet losing their grip on the branch he had landed on as he replayed an all to familiar scene that had deja vu reeling disconcertingly behind Sakura's green eyes.

Without really registering her movement, Sakura shot forward, sharpened senses seeking out the source of their confrontation as she unceremoniously wrapped her fingers tautly around Naruto's thick wrist―yanking him back up onto the wooden limb before he could truly feel the impact of his near-death plummet against his bones.

"Thanks, Sakura-chan." Naruto gasped frantically, his uninjured hand coming up to rip the offending throwing knife from his toned arm. Sakura pried the bloody weapon from his numb fingers, standing sharply as she spun on her heel and sent the blade careening through the trees. A second later and there was a loud grunt, followed by the clanging of metal repelling metal, and Sasuke's heightened awareness led him straight to the fumbling nukenin; he slipped out of existence as fast as he returned into it, a piercing shriek resounding emphatically in the stormy barrage as he wiped his kusanagi clean of the blood that stained it against the front of his waterlogged cloak.

His expression was a twist of distaste and unmitigated wrath, and he spring-boarded himself to the blonde's side without ceremony mere seconds later.

"You okay, dobe?" Sasuke questioned stonily, multi-coloured eyes scanning the blurry landscape sternly as he expressed his concern with mute displeasure tensing his large frame. Naruto grinned at the raven haired Uchiha's rare display of genuine concern, wincing a little as Sakura sealed the gushing wound with her medical chakra; the luminous green glow lighting up her severe expression as she mended the superficial tear with vigour.

"Yeah, never been better, teme. How about we kick some rogue ninja ass as revenge?" Naruto bolstered proudly, eyes alight with a blazing desire for vengeance as the reinforcements of Sakura's now dead tormentors made their presences known to them all.

There were a lot of them, for starters, the sheer numbers alone frightening. Were there really that many discontent shinobi in this newfound era of peace? Sakura gulped back her tremor of horror as she realised with profound, unsettling clarity that there would always be bloodthirsty rebels in their midst, no matter how hard they fought for pacification.

"That's the first reasonable thing you've said all day." Sasuke exclaimed with a sadistic smirk mirrored effortlessly by his best friend, and the two stood shoulder to shoulder, each sizing up their odds with a confidence that evaded Sakura.

Ever the realist, she calculated their odds of success. No doubt they were all strong. But to take on powerful opponents in their hundreds was not an ideal scenario.

They were but five, and they did not have the supplies to keep them soldiering on forever. Never the less, the odds did not faze the two heroes of the Ninja World, as they threw themselves into the thick of fighting with an excitement that worried Sakura momentarily, before she had a handful of nukenin to deal with herself.

Nearly hissing in contempt at their overbearing airs of pretentious victory, Sakura unloaded punch after chakra-fulled punch into their guts, not hesitating with her one hit KO's as she beat her way through the army of unified perfidy with a hateful glare burning into their retinas as they met their demises. She bounced off the surrounding tree trunks until she had settled on the ground, finding that fending off projectiles and well-timed offenses via the missing-nin was too perilous a task to uphold for long whilst in the air overhead.

She settled beneath the canopy of impossibly tall trees, sinking gracefully to the muddy earth as an unsteady roundhouse kick cut through the air above her bowed head.

Sakura flipped onto her heels once more, sliding beneath the startled ninja's parted legs as she sliced at his achilles tendons with her chakra scalpels, his anguished cry swallowed by mud as he fell face first into the gluggy mess of upheaved soil. Without pause, Sakura rolled to the side to avoid the onslaught of shuriken that embedded itself in the softened earth, jumping to her feet and throwing her full weight at the closest nukenin.

Unfortunately for the the unprepared rogue kunoichi, who was the target of Sakura's lethal Hundred Strengths justsu, she happened to be that chosen victim, and before she had the chance to draw a weapon to defend herself―or even summon a defensive jutsu in place of her shrinking form―Sakura's glowing fist connected with her gut; tearing straight through the sunken flesh of her lightweight frame and sending spatters of crimson blood flying through the air.

The sheer force of her fist colliding with her prone form shattered the earth beneath their feet, and as the life drained from the woman's pale eyes, she thought she saw red tinging the depths of Sakura's vengeful irises. Her limp body shuddered around the impact point of the pinkette's fist, sailing through the air at break-neck speed as it tore through thickened tree trunks for miles until it was lost amidst the shattered rubble of upturned soil and falling trees. The distant crashes were dulled by the heavy storm, and the sound of birds screeching enigmatically over the din of clashing metal and thunderclaps manipulated artfully by her poised lover.

Not a drop of blood on him. Good. Relieved, Sakura returned her attentions to her own fight, keeping tabs on Yamato and Sai, who were fighting not far from where she stood. So far, none were worse for wear, but the stream of nukenin seemed almost endless; Sakura downed one, only to be confronted with five more.

Exertion began to settle in her wearied limbs, but she fought on diligently, skilfully evading the enemies rapid assaults as she tended to her comrades wounds with an efficiency that would have made Tsunade smirk with pride. A resonant _'bang!'_ cut through the tense atmosphere, Sakura's green eyes snapping to attention as she searched for the source of the racket.

She soon found it. Sai was cornered by a large group, each skilled enough to match him blow for blow as he was backed into a corner; in his desperation, he had thrown several explosive tags attached firmly to his weaponry's hilts, creating a craterous void that he could escape into. Barely.

He would need some assistance with his ploy. Sakura formed rapidfire hand seals, dodging further attacks and returning them full force with her no-nonsense kicks, sending the bastards into oblivion as she summoned a well-timed doton-no-jutsu. The earth crumbled beneath the nukenins feet, opening into a cavernous pit that spewed out thick roots and vines that captured them firmly in their steely grasps. Without further ado, they were dragged screaming into the bowels of hell, before the sharpened limbs pierced into their flesh through their parted orifices, blood painting the bowels of the earth red.

Sai flashed her a grateful smile, before he returned his focus to the approaching reinforcements with a startling amount of exasperation lining his stern features. It was obvious that he was feeling the toil of this battle just as much as she was.

"Sai! It's too cramped to continue fighting here!" Sakura yelled over the pounding rainfall, her voice nearly hoarse from screaming in the heat of staving off their enemies bold offense.

"We need to lead them to an open area! That way they won't have the tactical advantage over us!" The tall ANBU artist turned his heated gaze on her, nodding adamantly in fervent agreement as he propelled himself through the air, skidding on the balls of his feet to avoid the gush of chakra-laden Mizu-no-jutsus that arced through the air towards him in the form of vicious serpentine dragons. They stood arm to arm, eyes rapidly surveying their surroundings with cool indifference as they waited for an opening; they found it behind a nukenin who had slipped on the muddy earth, and Sakura was quick to send him flying whilst Sai covered her with his unsheathed tantō.

Their team work was impeccable, and it showed when Sai, as if on cue, ducked over, allowing Sakura to propel herself off of his proffered back and straight onto the shoulders of a rogue ninja too large for Sai's short-sword to fatally wound. Sakura wrapped her legs tightly around the nukenin's thick neck, which strained in tenuous pulsations against her inner thighs in an attempt to break her stranglehold. Sakura charged her chakra through her legs, locking the nin in place before she twisted her hips, her whole upper body shifting with the force of her momentum as she snapped his neck with ease.

"Sakura!" Surprisingly, Sai had called her by name, his frantic gensticulation directed somewhere over her shoulder.

She heard the distinct _'thwip!'_ of multiple shuriken cutting through the frigid downpour towards her erect form, and without much thought, Sakura flipped backwards, using her chakra-enhanced leg strength to lift the hefty deadweight whose shoulders she currently occupied up into the air with her. Her unconventional handstand removed her from harm's way, as the sharpened weaponry sunk into the senseless flesh of her cadaver "escape jutsu", Sakura allowing equilibrium to take hold once more as the warm corpse slammed into the earth with a sickening lurch against the thick mud.

The pinkette returned to Sai's side vigilently, and the pair took off into the treetops, Sakura pausing briefly to glimpse the ensuing chaos behind them. Naruto and Sasuke had teamed up to great success, obliterating the ever-expanding masses with ease as Yamato offered them assistance through their blindspots. Had the situation not been nearly so dire, Sakura would have stopped to admire the unshakable strength of their collective might.

But unfortunately there was no time for such ponderings, and as Sakura returned her focus to barrelling through the trees with Sai in tow, a pack of bloodthirsty rogues on their tails, she hoped that there would never again be another chance for them to test out her musings.

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><p>"Sasuke! Did you see where Sai and Sakura-chan went?" Naruto called over the roaring winds and the sharpened impact of blades sparking violently against one another, his amber eyes shifting over to his best friend's animated form. He was currently repelling a hoarde of nukenin with a devastating blow from his Kirin, the frenzied clap of thunder ripping through the atmosphere as if there were no other sound to hinder it.<p>

His blazing red and violet eyes snapped over to the last place he had seen Sakura, a sinking sensation filling his gut as he searched for her petite form to gay abandon.

"_Fuck_! Where the hell is she?" He spat irately, attention split between killing their enemies and getting a fix on Sakura's location. Her chakra signal fizzled in and out of focus, accompanied by Sai's; both of which were frantically fluctuating as they drew further away from the rest of their teammates.

"She's with that artsy moron, heading north-west. Probably out of the forest, finding an open clearing to even the odds." Sasuke stated resolutely, a flare of anger settling in the pit of resentment he held especially for those who disobeyed his will. He was fucking _pissed_.

"I told her not to _leave my sight_!" Sasuke spat venomously, delivering a demonic kick to the stomach of a rapidly approaching shinobi, the force enough to send them flying into the furthest tree trunk from him and split the thickened bough apart with a sickening _'crack!'_

"Don't worry so much, teme! Sakura-chan is _super_ strong! She can hold her own! Besides, she's got Sai to back her up! Things won't play out like last time!" Naruto gasped out through gritted teeth as he propelled himself through the air, landing on the carefully timed Mokuton: Henge technique that Yamato had summoned at will, the thick branches of his wood style carrying Naruto into the thick of battle.

Sasuke cursed, at odds with his desire to protect Sakura and help Naruto, but his conscience won out, and he sprinted rapidly across the cragged earth dampened with rain beneath his fast-moving feet; jumping up onto the successive Henge that sprouted underfoot for him whilst glaring darkly at the incoming surge of nukenin forces.

_You'd better watch your backs, Sakura, Sai. Don't let your guards down and get yourselves killed while I'm not there!_

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><p>"We should find a cliff face, Sai! That way we can escape, should we get overrun!" Sakura shouted, her bangs slapping against the exposed skin of her forehead and cheeks as she threw her weight forward, struggling to maintain the breakneck pace that Sai was keeping with apparent ease.<p>

The only sign that pointed against this notion was the slouched posture that had settled over his sinewy frame, and Sakura felt a sympathetic prickle tickle its way down her spine at the sight. She would do her best to rectify this as soon as possible. For now, they had to focus on the fight ahead. Slipping into sensory mode, Sakura scouted out the competition; about twenty rogues of varying power levels were giving chase, and only four of them were cause for concern.

_If we eliminate them first, we'll probably be surrounded and killed by the other sixteen, weak as they are..._ The pink haired med-nin mused severely, eyes calculating as she scanned her peripherals for any sign of the enemy closing in on them. None so far. This, at least, gave Sakura the time needed to devise a solid tactical assault in retaliation against them.

"Sai! Looks like we'll have to tackle the weaker ones first. One of us will act as the diversionary element, the other the hard-hitter." She proclaimed through shuttered exhalations. Her lungs were running short on oxygen, and the frigid drops of biting rain did not help in the least bit; they were numbing her limbs, which were struggling to retain the same efficient speed as before. Soon she was sure they would buckle completely under her weight.

"Understood. I'll use my waterproof ink this time, to buy you a moment or two to recharge your chakra for the final assault." Sai returned curtly, shaggy black bangs sticking to his gaunt face as he turned his serious gaze upon her. He was entrusting her with his life. She could not afford to screw this up, or it meant both of their heads.

"Got it. Be sure to keep the weaklings busy while I contend with the rest. I've got just the jutsu to finish this quickly." Sakura exclaimed with a weary smile, dark shadows forming on her face from a lack of respite that was ingrained on the dark haired artist's visage as well. Whilst continuing to scan their layout for the perfect clearing for fair fighting, Sakura built up all of her reserves of chakra within her forehead, the dark diamond glowing iridescently at its centre as she channelled all of her strength into awakening her full potential once more.

She had expended too much chakra in her last battle, trying to continuously heal and kill all at once, but this time she was well equipped for the situation.

_This time, I won't lose._

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p><em>Okay, so maybe I <strong>will<strong> lose_, Sakura thought wildly, her body riddled with bleeding welts―all superficial in depth and seriousness―as she felt the earth beneath her feet crumble a little more. Sai had lived up to his promise of entertaining their weaker foes, giving Sakura ample time to recover from her mild case of complete and total exhaustion as she sprung into the action once more.

She had been right about the four chakra signals she had zeroed in on; all were exceptional in their own way, and had the pinkette on her toes from the getgo. She had managed to knock down two of them―much to their utter shock and disbelief―before the remaining two got their wits about them and turned tactical.

And goddamn, they were something else when they combined their assault together. A mixture of rapidfire taijutsu enhanced with vicious ninjutsu, and Sakura was at a complete disadvantage, the tables turned on her as she took on a defensive stance; doing her absolute damnedest to avoid any serious damage as their earth-shattering offensive continued on in an endless barrage of raw power and skill.

Sakura had not been challenged like this in years, and she felt the weight of her weakness growing profounder by the second as they lashed away at her exposed skin; her coat had been abandoned long ago, and she profusely wished that the rain would send her screaming nerves into blissful oblivion, because this pain was too much to bear.

Another precise Doton-no-jutsu came crashing around her, the soil beneath her feet perilously loose as she was shepherded further away from Sai, and closer to the cliff edge that they had led them to. Ironic that it was her own plan being used against her. She had purposely proposed battling their enemies in such an open space so as to ensure an easy get away, should they become overwhelmed; what she had not anticipated was being herded towards a treacherous tumble off of a dangerously high precipice.

Without Sai's unique ability to draw creatures into existence at will, Sakura knew that she would not survive the plummet, and her heart lurched painfully in her chest as the nukenin focused on shattering her claim on buoyancy through the loosened earth underfoot. The relentless barrage of thundering rain did not help in her cause, as it sunk into the cracks of the spoiled ground, softening it dangerously as she shifted her frame slightly, trying to find a firm foothold that would root her in place.

This was not meant to be, as with one final, devastating blow, the earth beneath her feet melted away into nothingness, and then she was tumbling over the edge; her vision rapidly blurring against the whiplash of torrential winds as she lost sight of her enemies triumphant expressions amidst suspension.

And carrying through the intensifying downpour was Sai's anguished cry of her name, even as she fell into the chasmic abyss that awaited her below.

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><p><strong>*.*.*.*.*.TBC.*.*.*.*.*<strong>

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><p><strong>Ending Remarks:<strong> _So this is Part III. Expect Part IV some time in the near future. Please, please, **please** leave me a review! _

_They will help me to finish off this last installment! :D_

_Until the next time I update (I can't promise tomorrow, since, well, I didn't exactly keep that promise last time, now, did I?)~~_

-x-**R**_ i_ n-x-


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